What do the children of Israel coming to Mt. Sinai have to do with the Day of Judgment? More than you might think. The children of Israel reached Mt. Sinai in the third month after they left Egypt (Ex. 19:1-2). They had had by this time many experiences and had seen God working actively on their behalf in miracle after miracle. They had seen the plagues in Egypt many of which they were spared. They had crossed the Red Sea on dry ground, they had been provided with drinking water miraculously on two separate occasions (Ex. 15:22-25, Ex. 17:1-7), they had been fed with manna and quail (Ex. 16), and they had been able to defeat those who attacked them with God's help (Ex. 17:8-13). There was also the cloud that accompanied them by day and the pillar of fire that accompanied them by night. Evidence of God's presence with them and of his care for them was everywhere to be seen.
At Mt. Sinai, the Lord
spoke to Moses from the mountain (Ex. 19:3) with a message for the children of
Israel. They were to be reminded of what
they had seen the Lord do to the Egyptians and "how I bore you on eagles'
wings, and brought you to myself." (Ex. 19:4 NASB) These things they were fully aware of. The Lord is prepared to make a covenant with
them making them his special people if they will only agree to obey him keeping
his covenant (Ex. 19:5-6). Moses goes
back to the elders of the children of Israel, meets with them, and "all
the people" (Ex. 19:8 NASB) agree to do whatever the Lord says.
Here is where we begin
to get to what I want to talk about.
Moses returns with the words of the people to the Lord. The Lord then says to Moses, "Behold, I
will come to you in a thick cloud, so that the people may hear when I speak
with you and may also believe in you forever." (Ex. 19:9 NASB) All Bible students are well aware this will
be the time when God descends on Mt. Sinai in sight of the people though he
will be hidden in a cloud. "On the
third day (after preparations for the event are made--DS) the Lord will come
down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people." (Ex. 19:11 NASB) It will be the time when the Lord delivers
the Ten Commandments.
A question is in order
here. Why was one of the purposes of
this event "so that the people may hear when I speak with you and may also
believe in you (Moses--DS) forever"? (Ex. 19:9 NASB) The answer to this question is simple
enough. Moses was God's lawgiver,
"For the law was given through Moses" (John 1:17 NASB). He was God's man, the man who acted as a
mediator between God and God's children, the children of Israel. When Moses spoke to the children of Israel
they were to listen for he spoke to them on God's behalf. This event was to make it crystal clear to
all of God's relationship with Moses so that the children of Israel would know with
certainty that to disobey a command Moses gave was to disobey God himself.
However, there was also
another reason God wanted the people to hear him. He says, "so that the people may hear
when I speak with you." (Ex. 19:9 NASB)
They had seen God in action in his miracles but they had not yet heard
his voice. He wanted them to hear him. Why?
Was it just more confirmation to the people that Moses was God's man as
God talked directly to him? There was
that in it but might there have been more?
Yes! It was to learn to fear God.
Can you imagine what it
must have been like to hear the voice of God?
What kind of an effect would that have on a man or woman? If you were to hear a voice from heaven right
now, a loud speaking voice from the heavens (not a quiet inner speaking to the
mind or spirit), what kind of an effect would it have on you? Our first and immediate reaction, one we
would be incapable of not having, would be to strike us with terror down to our
toes. The children of Israel had been
told what was coming, what was going to happen, and were in expectation but even
so, it terrified them. Fear can change a
man and we want to pursue that thought a little bit.
On the third day, as God
had said, he descended on the mountain called Mt. Sinai in the presence of the
people who were at the base of the mountain although far enough back, according
to God's commandment, not to be touching it.
"So it came about on the third day, when it was morning, that there
were thunder and lightning flashes and a thick cloud upon the mountain and a
very loud trumpet sound, so that all the people who were in the camp
trembled." (Ex. 19:16 NASB)
"Now Mount Sinai
was completely in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a
furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly.
And when the blast of the trumpet sounded long and became louder and
louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him by voice." (Ex. 19:18-19
NKJV) The NASB says, "God answered
him with thunder." However, while
the original language can be technically translated either way the NKJV is
correct, it should be voice rather than thunder.
How do I know? Deut. 4:10-13, "Remember the day you
stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when the Lord said to me, 'Assemble
the people to me, that I may let them hear my words so they may learn to fear
me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach their
children.' You came near and stood at
the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the very heart
of the heavens: darkness, cloud and thick gloom. Then the Lord spoke to you from the midst of
the fire; you heard the sound of words, but you saw no form--only a voice. So he declared to you his covenant which he
commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments; and he wrote them on
two tablets of stone." (NASB) They
heard words, the words of God spoken by God, not thunder. We find further confirmation of this in Ex.
20:22, the very words of God himself directly speaking on the subject.
On the day God descended
on Mt. Sinai (called Horeb in Deut. 4:10) the New International Version says
the people "trembled with fear." (Ex. 20:18 NIV) While that is not a literal translation, the
literal is "they trembled" (NASB), it is the exact meaning of the
literal. They trembled due to what they
were seeing and hearing.
On that third day when
God came down on top of Mt. Sinai Moses went up. God then instructed him to go back down, warn
the people again to stay their distance, and to get Aaron and bring him back up
to the top of the mountain with him (with Moses), see Ex. 19:20-24. This he did.
However, having heard
God speak terrified the children of Israel to the extent that they begged
Moses, "Let not God speak to us, or we will die." (Ex. 20:19 NASB) Moses responded, "Do not be afraid; for
God has come in order to test you, and in order that the fear of Him may remain
with you, so that you may not sin." (Ex. 20:20 NASB)
So what are the lessons
in this account for us? I have not been
telling a story just to repeat a story.
There are important lessons here for you and me today. Here are some of them.
(1) One should fear
God. Fear is a motivating factor from
God himself. Its purpose is to keep us
from sinning. Many today say we should
have no fear of God. But the Bible says we are to perfect holiness
"in the fear of God." (2 Cor. 7:1 NASB) Of those listed by Paul in Rom. 3 as being
"under sin" (ver. 9) one of the condemning factors is, "There is
no fear of God before their eyes." (Rom. 3:18 NASB) Paul speaks of a factor that motivates him to
preach to sinful men. He says,
"Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men." (2 Cor.
5:11 NASB) He does not want men to experience
condemnation and knows there is a reason to fear such an end.
Yes, I know perfect love
casts out fear and the one who fears is not perfected in love (1 John
4:18). I am sure Paul did not fear God
as in trembling fear but the fear of the Lord is one of the things that keeps
us from sin (Ex. 20:20) and keeps us walking in faithful obedience so that we
can develop that perfect love which in our spiritual maturity destroys fear. That day comes when we can say as Paul did,
"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the
faith." (2 Tim. 4:7 NKJV) We never
know when we are about to finish the race but we can know before death that we
have fought the good fight and have kept the faith and thus have the assurance
of salvation. We need not fear God as
long as we are walking in the light but the fear of God ought to keep us
walking in that light.
(2) Another lesson we
can learn from this account is that fear itself will not keep us on the
straight and narrow road of righteousness over the long haul. All who know the Bible know the rest of the
story that is not being covered in this article. I refer to the golden calf, an idol, which
will be made before Moses returns from being on the mountain with God for forty
days. We have here a people who have
experienced the real God who speaks and works miracles and who is full of
wonder and awe, capable of striking terror into people in an instant, and
before Moses can come down off this smoking mountain where God is the people
are already into idol worship.
This is at a time when
Moses is receiving the Ten Commandments on tablets of stone. It is at the time when "the glory of the
Lord rested on Mount Sinai … and to the eyes of the sons of Israel the
appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the mountain
top." (Ex. 24:16-17 NASB) But, did
it matter? What effect did this wondrous
sight have on the children of Israel?
People will worship
their idols and soon forget God. This is
still true today. Give a man a little
terror in his life and he suddenly comes to God but it often only lasts as long
as he remains terrified. As soon as the
terror abates he is back to his worship of money, or entertainment, or whatever
it is he worships. That said there are
two types of men--wise men and foolish men.
Wise men learn a lesson from terror and it remains with them. Wise men can learn from what has happened to
others. Foolish men can only learn when
the stripes are laid directly on their own backs.
(3) The final lesson in
this article pertains to the terror of the Lord itself. The children of Israel were terrified of God
when directly in his presence at the foot of the mountain. Now I want to ask one thing. Do you think it will be any different on the
Day of Judgment? I have no idea why
people have no fear of facing God in judgment, people who live their lives here
in disobedience. Do they think they are
going to be standing before God as equals on that day?
When the Day of Judgment
comes it will be as it was on that morning at Mt. Sinai. There will be no doubt about God's
existence. There will be no doubt about
whether or not there is going to be a Day of Judgment. There will be no doubt about where you are
heading very, very shortly if you have never obeyed the gospel. There will be stark terror in the hearts of
all the disobedient. There will be knees
too weak to stand on.
There will be weeping
and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 13:42).
"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living
God." (Heb. 10:31 NKJV) "And
anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of
fire." (Rev. 20:15 NKJV)
It is easy to walk with
a swagger through life and tell yourself and others you can handle anything, that
you do not need help from anyone and that you are not afraid of God. Well, maybe you are not afraid. Maybe you are not wise enough to be afraid
but God will make you afraid in the Day of Judgment. It is just so foolish and unnecessary that
people will throw their lives away and for what? It was for a golden calf in Moses' time and
often for nothing more than foolish pride and arrogance and the pleasing of
self in our own time.
Everyone needs to count
the cost now of disobedience to God.
"God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also
reap." (Gal. 6:7 NKJV) Will your
heart fail you for fear on the Day of Judgment?
It doesn't have to be that way but it is indeed "a fearful thing to
fall into the hands of the living God." (Heb. 10:31 NKJV) If you are unfaithful and disobedient we will
see how strong and tough you are on that day and you will see for
yourself. On that day we will all know
who we are and what our place is.
That will be the day
when "the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in
flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do
not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence
of the Lord and from the glory of His power." (2 Thess. 1:7-9 NKJV) Yes, like at Mt. Sinai men on the Day of
Judgment will know God is God and that man is not the boss.
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