Exodus 19.
THE people of Israel were now encamped before Mount Sinai, and Moses went up its rocky heights to speak with God, to get a message from Him for the people. And this was the message: You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and what I have done for you. Now if you will be obedient, and keep My contract (or agreement) then you shall be a peculiar treasure to Me above every other nation; you will be to Me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.
When Moses came down from the mountain, and had gathered the elders of the people he told them the message, and all the people answered together, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.”
With this answer, Moses went back to God.
What foolish people they were, surely. For one thing, they had already done considerable complaining, as we have seen in earlier chapters, showing themselves to be pretty ungrateful to God, and not very trustful, either; and then too, they didn’t know what terms God would write into the contract He had spoken to Moses about. But, however it was with them, the children of Israel had given their promise, and God took them at their word. From now on, they were under law, under a set of rules, not rules to make them good, but to show them how bad they were. God was going to try, or test them, and I will tell you one place to find the answer. It is in the Epistle to the Romans, chapter 3, verses 19 and 20. God is not testing people now by the contract which He put on the people of Israel; that test ended when wicked men nailed the Son of God to a cross to die. Instead, God now is beseeching people to be reconciled to Him, to believe in His Son, and be saved.
Here, though, in the nineteenth chapter of Exodus, we don’t find God telling us the way to be saved, and of His love to us, but, instead, since the people were ready, as they thought, to obey God, and live according to any rules He might lay down, we read. of thunder and lightning, a thick cloud on the mountain, a trumpet sounding very loud, and fire and smoke. No one might come near the mountain, for if he did, whether it were a person or an animal, it should die. All the people trembled in the camp, and well they might.
Who could meet God, except as the One who forgives sins? Yet every one of us has to meet God. We can put off the time, but if we meet Him unsaved, it will be to hear Him say, I do not know you. Your place is the one prepared for the devil and his angels.
Second Corinthians 5:10, 11 is a very solemn portion of God’s Word for us to think about.
“We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ: that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God.”
ML 03/05/1922