Well, we’ve reached the end of
our series on the Ten Commandments. The
people of Israel are at Mount Sinai, the mountain of God. God has given the Ten Commandments to Moses
and Moses has relayed them to the people of Israel. Since escaping Egypt, the Israelites have seen
seas part, manna fall from the sky, and water spring from a rock. God has proven, as if He needed to, to all of
Israel
In our modern society, we are too familiar and even
dismissive of the concept of authority.
Even the greatest of human authority figures in our own time don’t quite
get shown the respect that they once did.
Take for example, a meeting between the first family and the Queen of
England that happened several years back.
Imagine the complete shock that the Queen must have felt when the first
lady gave her a nice pat on the back to go along with that iPod. Even someone as unfamiliar with foreign
customs as myself knows that you just don’t touch the Queen of England without
her permission. Or if you will, during a
trip to Washington D.C., Shaquille O’Neal decided that he was going to just
stop by the White House for a quick visit with the president. He had no appointment and had no idea that no
matter who you are, you cannot meet with the president without an
appointment. Authority is not seen in
the same light today as it has been in the past. And that makes it difficult for us to
appreciate the reverence and awe with which we ought to approach the living
God.
As we turn to our text to see the response of Israel
following the Ten Commandments, the first thing that we notice is the Reaction
to God shown by Israel. “Now
when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound
of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled,
and they stood far off.” So the
people of Israel were afraid. The
presence of the Lord was upon them and they were afraid. Not just afraid, they were scared to
death. There was complete and total
terror amongst this group of people. This
fear displayed by Israel is true of us today.
God’s nearness can be a terrifying thing for sinners. If we were to look back at 19:16, we would
see almost the exact same thing that we have here in 20:18. We find that after the thunder, the
lightning, the trumpet sounds, and the smoking mountain that the people feared,
trembled, and stood far off in the distance.
I know we began this series
several months ago, but do you remember when this story at Mount Sinai started
how the people of Israel were crowding in around it so closely? They wanted to look and try and catch a
glimpse of God. Exodus 19:12 speaks of when
the Lord instructs Moses to tell the people of Israel to “Take care not to go up the
mountain or touch the edge of it.
Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death.” Now we have gone from God having the people
kept off of the mountain only by the threat of death to having them willingly move
far away from the mountain out of fear.
What happened during this timeframe? The Ten Commandments. God came and met with Israel and they ran
away.
As I mentioned a second ago, the
reaction of the people of Israel tells us one thing, God’s nearness can be
terrifying for sinners. The people of
Israel realized their guilt and unholiness before the awesome God, and they
knew they were deserving of his condemnation.
Just like the Israelites, we too long for closeness and intimacy with
God. The problem is that we do not give
the respect, awe, and admiration that are due to God in such intimacy. If you are like me you have prayed many times
for God to “show you” what He would have you do. And if you are anything like me when that answer
has come to you and you didn’t like it, then you have tried to ignore God’s
will. Notice that the important word
there is tried.
As we continue in this text, we see the Request made by
Israel of Moses. Verse 19 says, “[Israel]
said to Moses, ‘You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak
to us, lest we die.” Now we may
quickly want to look down upon Israel for wanting to place someone between
themselves and God. But think about how
brilliant this request is on behalf of the Israelites. They could not bear God speaking directly to
them. They knew that they were in need
of a covenant mediator, someone who would stand between God and the
people. In this particular case, they
wanted Moses to be the one who stood between them and God. They wanted Moses to speak God’s word to them
instead of hearing it directly from God himself.
Think with me for a just a
moment on how gracious this was of God as well.
What had the people of Israel been doing time and time again in Moses’
tenure as their leader? They had been
questioning his roll and complaining every chance they got. Now, with God having spoken to them directly,
the people can't wait to hear Moses.
Think of someone in your life who has always stood there and said about
a boss or a superior, “I know I could do a better job than he does” or “Why
should I have to listen to him anyway?”
Well, many times when people making those statements are promoted or
given more responsibility, how quickly do they eat those words? Here, the people of Israel are going from
questioning Moses to saying, “Um, Moses, yeah we are afraid of hearing directly
from God anymore so if we could just hear everything from you from now on that
would be great.” God stopped all qualms
about Moses’ position as a leader and covenant mediator. The people of Israel realized now more than
any other time up to that point that they were in need of such a mediator.
I want you to look at what the
people of Israel say to Moses in their request.
They don’t just ask him to stand in as a mediator between them and
God. They assure him that they will
listen. Back in 19:8 the elders of the
people of Israel had already said to Moses, “All that the Lord has spoken we
will do.” They had already committed
to follow everything that God chooses to tell them. In asking Moses to speak to them, the people
of Israel were not trying to get out of the deal they had previously made. They were simply realizing their need for a
mediator and were asking for it to be Moses.
The Israelites were still going to keep their commitment to God for
obedience.
Notice the Israelites reaction
to what would happen if Moses didn’t accept this request, “do not let God speak to us, lest
we die.” The entire purpose of
the exodus from Egypt was so that Israel would be saved to worship God. Continuously God saved His people so that
they might worship Him. Now that they were
at the foot of God’s mountain and He had come to meet them, what did they have
to say? “Um, Moses, sorry to ask this of
you, but is there any way that you could ask him to never speak to us
again.” They didn’t want to hear the
voice of God speaking directly to them anymore.
They wanted Moses to be the one to speak on God’s behalf to them. The Israelites recognized their need for a mediator. They were completely aware of the fact that
they could not endure the unmediated presence of the one true God. To fill this role of mediator, who better to
ask than Moses, the one whom God had already appointed to fill it?
Often I hear people who either
do not regularly attend church or are only physically present while their mind
drifts off to a more “entertaining” place have the wrong idea about God. They think that God’s “job” is to forgive
their sins and to grant their wishes.
They think that they can just walk right into the presence of God and
ask for anything they want. I can tell
you for sure that the Israelites that were present on that day at Sinai did not
share the attitudes of the uninformed Christian. They saw the holiness and glory of God. They also saw their sin. They saw it in all of its ugly and dirty
shame. They knew that they were in need
of a mediator. We would do well to keep
in mind that we too, are in constant need of a mediator. Our mediator is one far greater than any
other could ever hope to be, even greater than Moses. Our one true mediator is the Lord Jesus
Christ.
Next I want us to look at the Reassurance given to the
people of Israel by Moses in verse 20, “Moses said to the people, ‘Do not fear, for
God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may
not sin.” The people of Israel
seemed to have misunderstood God’s intentions at Sinai. They were afraid that God was going to crush
and destroy them. But Moses, as covenant
mediator, stepped in and reassured the people that that was not God’s desire. Moses was informing the people of Israel that
God’s reasons for coming to them were not bad, but were indeed something that
was good. God had not come to scare them
or discourage them and beat them down; he had come to encourage them. In fact, the first words out of Moses’ mouth
are, “Do not fear.” He was
telling the people of Israel that they should not be afraid of this coming of
God.
Moses goes on to explain why Israel is not to fear this
visitation, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be
before you.” I want to clarify
something here that might seem a bit confusing.
The first words say that Israel should not fear, but later on Moses says
that the reasoning for the visitation was so that the fear of God may be before
Israel. Is this a contradiction of
Scripture? Of God? Of Moses?
Of course not! In saying do not
fear, he came that you would fear Him, God, through Moses, was telling the
people of Israel of the vast difference that exists between being frightened by
God and appropriately fearing God. Moses
wanted the Israelites to fear God and not just be afraid of the pyrotechnics
that had just occurred before their very eyes.
How many times are we guilty of simply being frightened by God instead
of fearing him as we should? I can
remember when I was a teenager, I went to go see a play called Heavens Gates
and Hell’s Flames. It was at a local
Baptist church in Meridian. The play was
a series of scene at the gates of heaven, and the characters were told that
they either got in or got out. It wasn’t
the most theologically sound play, but there were people walking down front and
committing their lives to Christ like you would believe. However, they weren’t doing it out of a
reverence for God, but because the scenes from the play scared the mess out of
them.
Moses goes on to explain here that Israel should not
fear because God has drawn near to them.
He had given them the Ten Commandments and drawn near to them so that
they would always fear Him. But the fear
that He’s speaking of here at the end of verse 20 is not the fear of terror or
dread; but reverence that leads to obedience and awe of the gracious and
sovereign God. Moses was explaining that
the reasoning for God’s actions was not only to instill fear in Israel, but
also to test them. His test was not a
test of obedience though, but more along the lines of showing the need for a
mediator. After all, there wasn’t hardly
any time between the giving of the Ten Commandments and Moses’ speaking again
to the Israelites. Read the last part of
verse 20, “That you may not sin.” You
see, the people of God in the presence of God were to experience two things at
the same time. On the one hand, they were
to realize that God was an awesome God, and they ought to be judged. And at the same time, that God was a good and
a merciful God, and He had provided for them a mediator, and He had redeemed
them out of Egypt, and He was for them.
The last thing that I want to briefly look at in this passage
is the Reproach made by Moses to God.
Now obviously I cannot stand here and tell you that Moses reprimanded
God. All we are given in the text is, “The
people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God
was.” Notice the reversal of
polarity between the people of Israel and Moses. The people stood afar while Moses drew nearer
to God. Like the Israelites, we, as
sinners, are not capable of drawing ourselves nearer to God. For that task, we must rely upon a mediator. We are fortunate enough to have received an
understanding of the one true mediator that even Moses was unaware of. Moses was a sinner just like us; he too was
in need of a mediator. His mediator,
just like ours, is the Lord Jesus Christ.
So as we look back on this passage and all the rest of
our series on the Ten Commandments, we see that like the Israelites, and even
Moses, are in need of a covenant mediator.
We have seen the need played out for us.
Was there any doubt about the need for a mediator then? Is there any doubt about the need for a
mediator today? Only God can make it
safe to come near to God. Your own
righteousness cannot make God safe, only the righteousness of Christ can do
so. We’ve seen how miserably short we
fall of the standard that God has set for us.
God is the only one with the power to make Himself safe. And that is exactly what He did in His Son
Jesus Christ. Thank God for the gift of
His Son Jesus Christ. Glory be to God;
in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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