THREE months after Jehovah had led Israel out from the land of Egypt He bade Moses bring them to the wilderness of Sinai, and there He gave them His law. As we read in Rom. 5, man had not had the direct law of God up to the time of Moses; but Israel, being redeemed from out of the land of idolatry, and from the dominion of Pharaoh, and being brought near to God as His peculiar people, He had given them commandments and instructions, such as were in accordance with Jehovah's holy mind.
You, my dear young friends, in your happy homes, are called by your parents to obey their laws and wishes. You would think it very strange if your father commanded the children in the street to obey him, and the children in the street would only laugh at your father for so speaking to them. But you, being his children, love your father's commands, and, because you are his, are bidden by him to do his pleasure. Now God deals with His people in a way quite differently from that in which He deals with the poor heathen, and He looks for obedience from His own; He looks for obedience from each of you who love Him, and by your obedience to Him you show that you love Him. He said to Israel, "I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto Myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people: for all the earth is Mine: and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation." (Ex. 19:4-64Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. 5Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: 6And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel. (Exodus 19:4‑6).)
Hearing Jehovah's word, "all the people answered together, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do." I am sure our dear young friends, who love the Lord, feel how weak they are, for God has taught them that they "are not sufficient of themselves to do anything as of themselves." We have no strength in ourselves is the heart-language of a true Christian. It was only the other day a young believer said to us, "I have not strength of myself even to love God." Now, while God the Father looks to us, as His children, to obey His word, He also teaches us that in Jesus only, by the Holy Spirit, is our power to do His pleasure; and when we are weak, then are we strong. Our God teaches us in His word to depend upon Him, and if we love Him we shall seek His grace for our daily walk.
They were very different words which Jehovah spoke to Israel from the words of love He speaks to us through the Son of His love. All the nation was called together to the foot of the mountain, both great and small, the rulers of thousands and the poorest of the poor—men, women, and children; but they were bidden not to come near the mountain—not to touch it under pain of death. When God the Father spoke to man through the lips of Jesus, the Son of Man, little children, and the poor and weak, were tenderly bidden come near; and even now, though Jesus is in heaven in glory, still the least and the weakest of us may go close to Him. In this is one difference between God speaking through His holy law and by His Son to man.
There is a large plain at the foot of a high group of mountains, which form the Sinaitic range, and there it is thought the people of Israel were gathered together to hear the words of the law. This plain is wide, and capable of holding a vast multitude of people, and above it the lofty and precipitous crags of Sinai frown. To the children of Israel, who had dwelt all their lives in the flat country of Egypt, the very sight of Sinai must have been appalling.
But how they must have trembled when Sinai shook with thunders, and when from out of the dense darkness and clouds around its top, the long and "exceeding loud" sound of the trumpet bade them come somewhat near, and attend to the voice of Jehovah. "So terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake." (Heb. 12:2121And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:) (Hebrews 12:21).) The little children and "all the people that were in the camp trembled." Again, in this day of God's dealing in grace, we have a contrast, for we are not come to the mount that could be touched, but to Jesus and His blood. Yet, let us remember that, if anyone has not come to Jesus and His blood, he must have to stand before the holy God, and give an account for all his works. Oh! who could thus stand before God? How terrible it will be to have to appear before Him unsaved, unforgiven, and doubly so for such as have heard of His grace, and have made light of it.
You are all, I trust, familiar with the ten words, or Ten Commandments, given by Jehovah from that thick cloud on Sinai, and, therefore, we shall not repeat them here.
The first commandment is, "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me," and when the people stood afar off for fear, and Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was, He said, "Ye have seen that I have talked with you from heaven. Ye shall not make with Me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold." As well as the words or commandments, the Lord communicated many judgments to Israel, which are recorded in the twentieth to the twenty-third chapters of Exodus. Moses told the people all that Jehovah had told him—both words and judgments—when with one voice the people said, "All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient." (Ex. 24:88And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words. (Exodus 24:8).) Their ways, of which we shall speak presently, will be evidence of how impossible it is for man in his own strength to obey Him.
Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord, and, shortly after, again went up into the mount where Jehovah was. The sight was like devouring fire on the mountaintop, and the children of Israel saw it.
I wonder if my young friends have felt while reading these pages how terrible in holiness God is? How shall anyone dare stand in His presence? I do not now mean how shall anyone stand in His presence who is sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus, and made fit for the very holiness of God's nature. But there are readers of this page who have not been to God, and who have not had their sins washed away in the precious blood of Christ. And to them I say, "How can you ever stand before God in your sins?”
“Oh! but we will obey Him, and be good!" Yes, thus some speak. Not long ago a youth, who had begun to think of eternity, thus expressed himself. So he tried to be good, tried to be holy, but the more he tried the less good he found he was. And at last he said, "I find I am a sinner," and he fled to Jesus for peace. Think of the devouring fire, think of the voice and words of God on Sinai; He is holy, and hates sin. There is no other way of peace for anyone, save that which is made by the precious blood of His Son. In ourselves we are unholy, and we can never make ourselves holy, and unless we are sanctified, that is, made holy by the one offering of Jesus, we can never stand in peace before God.
It was some few weeks after Israel's promise of obedience that they began to weary of waiting for Moses. He was in Jehovah's presence on their behalf, receiving instructions concerning the beautiful tent they were to make, in which Jehovah said He would dwell, amongst them (Ex. 25:88And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them. (Exodus 25:8)); and concerning the altars and the sacrifices they were to have, by which they were to approach Him, and concerning the beautiful garments of holiness which the priests should wear who would minister for them before the Lord. Yet, while Moses was receiving these gracious instructions from Jehovah, Israel grew tired of waiting for their leader, and "gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him." (Ch: 32.) Alas, alas! only a few weeks before they all had said they would obey this first commandment of the Lord, "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.”
Where was their strength to obey Jehovah for six short weeks? Already they had forgotten the words of the Lord. "And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.... And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf." Yet he had heard Jehovah's words, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.”
Sin was added to sin, for so it always is, one sin begets another, and sins grow bigger and greater by their very commission. We never know where sin is going to stop. Many a child has said, "I will only do this one disobedient act," who, before the day has been out, has added sin to sin.
The people brought their golden earrings to Aaron, who made a mold in the shape of a calf, heated a furnace, and then melted the gold and poured it out in the shape he had made, and, having fashioned it thus far, he had it finished and ornamented with a graving tool. The calf was one of the gods of Egypt, and images of the calf were carried in processions by the Egyptians. The Israelites wanted gods to go before them. The fiery, cloudy pillar had gone before them, and was halting over them, even during this the time of their awful wickedness; but they wanted gods, and they made them, and chose as their idol the calf, one of the chief gods of Egypt.
(To be continued.)