A SHORT move from Rephidim brought the people into the wilderness of Sinai, and here they camped before the mount. Here it was that. Moses “went up unto God,” in Horeb, and that the Lord called to him out of the mountain, giving him words that he should speak to the children of Israel. The people were to be reminded, first, of what God had done to the Egyptians, their oppressors. Let us learn from this that God would not have us forget His goodness toward us, and His might in vanquishing our foes and in giving us the victory over the powers of darkness.
Next was to be recalled to Israel how God had, borne them on eagle’s wings and brought them unto Himself. Even as the eagle “stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her-wings,” so God in His love and in His pity had redeemed Israel and had carried them along and He had kept them “as the apple of His eye.” He led them through the desert, He cared for them in “a waste howling wilderness.” “In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them,” (Deut. 32:10, 11, 1210He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. 11As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: 12So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him. (Deuteronomy 32:10‑12), Isa. 63:99In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old. (Isaiah 63:9).) How very beautiful this is—and how true also now for those who are the Lord’s! Do we realize that we are being carried along by that strong and loving power; and that He who has redeemed us is not only caring for us in our weary wilderness journey, but He also has sorrow in our sorrow, is afflicted in our afflictions! Oh, what a thought! and how it should fill our hearts with comfort and joy!
God was about to make a covenant with the people He was thus leading. He had never before put His people under law. He had warned Adam against eating of “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”; He had given promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; but now He had chosen Israel to be “a peculiar treasure” unto Himself, and He would have them obey His voice, and keep the covenant He was about to make with them.
This was what Moses was to make known to the people. And when they heard it they all answered, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do. Alas! alas! how little they knew their own unbelieving hearts, and how soon they had forgotten the wonders God had shewed them. And now, without knowing what God would have them do, they were promising to keep the law before they got it! This was a vain thing, as they afterwards proved.
And do we not often find the same thing now—those who are confident in their own strength but who, when tried, are sadly wanting? It is well to say, By the grace of God I will do this or that. Without Christ, we can do nothing, and it is well for us always to feel and own our weakness, and that the strength must be of God.
ML 05/31/1903