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"Moses said to the Lord, See, thou sayest to me, Bring up this people; but thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I know you by name, and you have also found favour in my sight. Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found favour in thy sight, show me now thy ways, that I may know thee and find favour in thy sight. Consider too that this nation is thy people. And he said, My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. And he said to him, If thy presence will not go with me, do not carry us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favour in thy sight, I and thy people? Is it not in thy going with us, so that we are distinct, I and thy people, from all other people that are upon the face of the earth? And the Lord said to Moses, This very thing that you have spoken I will do; for you have found favour in my sight, and I know you by name. Moses said, I pray thee, show me thy glory. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you my name, The Lord and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy" (Exodus 33:12-19). Moses knew God. The Apostle Paul testified, "I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And I did so in Jerusalem; I not only shut up many of the saints in prison, by authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death I cast my vote against them. And I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme; and in raging fury against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities. Thus I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. At midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven brighter than the sun, shining round me and those who jouneyed with me. And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It hurts you to kick against the goads. And I said, 'Who are you, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, But rise and stand upon your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and bear witness to the things which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from the people and from the Gentiles - to whom I send you to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me" (Acts 26:9-18). Paul started thus with a personal knowledge of the Lord. After many fresh encounters with the Lord, he said, "That I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead" (Philippians 3:10-11). Paul knew the Lord and yearned more and more to know Him. His service for the Lord sprang out of his settled and growing knowledge of the Lord. There are many believers today who worship "the unknown God". There are many who have never sought Him until He was revealed to them. There are many who do not know Him. There are many for whom sin is a wonderful attraction because they have never beheld the all-glorious face of the eternal Father nor heard His sweet voice. Their faith is more or less a theory. God seems absent or at best, withdrawn. Do you know God? When did you personally encounter Him? When was your last encounter with Him? The greatest need of the hour is for saints who know God. This book is about knowing God. We consider that the greatest need of the hour is for believers to know their God and render to Him service that is an outflow of this knowledge and intimacy with Him. It is a book for you!
