This morning, I found myself intrigued in the story of Moses meeting with God at Mt. Sinai. We know this is where the Ten Commandments were given to the Israelites by God, but before that God showed up. Now, when God showed up, it was not just a “Hey y’all, I’m here!” The Bible says that in that morning thunder roared, lightning flashed and a dense cloud came down on the mountain. There was a long trumpet blast with the Lord descending in the form of fire. The Bible goes on to say that smoke billowed out in the sky as if from a furnace. The whole mountain shook greatly and God thundered as He spoke.
As I was reading through this, I couldn’t help but think to myself again, these people are hard-headed as hard-headed can get. They have seen and experienced so much awe-inspiring things from God, yet if you recall back to your Sunday School lessons past, a little over a month later from this very moment, these same folks are worshipping and indulging in pagan revelry around a golden calf! What in the world!
This is just crazy, y’all! These people have seen God literally shake the mountain and heard His thundering voice, but within a matter of a few weeks could be found worshipping an idol. I just can’t seem to wrap my head around it as I am reading it this morning. It seems like common sense, huh? They had the fear of the Lord in them and the awe of what they witnessed. I mean, they were told to not even attempt to come up on that mountain and break the boundary given to them or they would be killed. I can only imagine the awe as they stood there witnessing the glory of The Lord! The problem is that awe and fear will only produce temporary results. This is where we find the Israelites in Exodus 19. They had the fear and awe, but that quickly faded. They agreed to follow God and His instructions before they even knew what they were. Spoiler alert…we know it didn’t last.
How do we go from temporary results to last change? Fear and awe must be replaced with submission to our will. Now, do I believe we should fear or have reverence for God? Absolutely. He is Almighty God. However, we must not forget that if we want lasting change over the sin in our lives and our human flesh, we must fully submit our lives to The Lord. We can’t honestly say that if we experienced the same thing that the Israelites did at Mt. Sinai, we would be any different. We have seen God shake up our world, yet very little remains unchanged because we have a temporary fear and awe instead of submission to God and dying to self. Until that happens, we will only see temporary changes, not transformed lives. We will see unrighteousness living in the shadow of a righteous God.
It’s hard to swallow, but let me encourage you to hang around. We are not under the law or excluded from the presence of God like the Israelites at Mt. Sinai.
Spoiler alert: There is a New Covenant and a place called Mt. Zion.
Stay tuned…
