Monday, August 15, 2005
Matthew 6:9c Hallowed be Your name.
PROCLAIM THE NAME OF THE LORD
Moses was given the special privilege of having God talk to him face to face. "So the LORD spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend" (Exodus 33:11). "There has not arisen in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face" (Deuteronomy 34:10).
If, then, we want to know God's name, Moses surely should be able to reveal it to us. If there is anyone who can tell us about God and what He is like, surely Moses should be the man. He does not disappoint us. Or, better, we should say God does not disappoint us.
Listen to these words: "Now the LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him (Moses) there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, 'The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation'" (Exodus 34: 5-7).
The name of God is the revelation of who He is and what He is like. Above all, He wanted Moses to know, and He wants us to know, that He is a merciful and gracious God. He is a God who forgives sins. Yet at the same time He will punish those who turn against Him and refuse to trust in Him as a God of mercy.
God wants us to hallow His name. How do we do this? By proclaiming Him in the same way God proclaimed Himself. That is, we want to praise God for being a God who forgives our sins in His mercy. We want to confess our transgressions before Him and trust that He alone can forgive our sins. We want everyone to know what kind of God He is.
Another prophet came after Moses who was even greater than Moses. In Him we have the complete revelation of who God is and how God feels about us. Jesus, God's Son, is the name of God. He is the revealer of God's name. When we see Jesus, we see God. When we look at what Jesus did for us, we see the revelation of mercy and grace and longsuffering and forgiveness. In Jesus we see God's name. May we ever hallow that name.
