Daily Thoughts from Exodus: Our Opinion vs. God’s Opinion (20:18-21)

Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was. (Exodus 20:18-21, ESV)

God has used a powerful display before the people as He hands the 10 commandments to them, a supernatural display that can leave no one mistaking that God in His holiness and power is present. The last time they saw such a display of lightning and thunder it was accompanied with hail as Yahweh visited Egypt with a plague. But the people draw a wrong conclusion from this display. God is not here to kill them. Yes, perhaps they do need a mediator in Moses but Moses makes it clear that God is testing them. He is seeking to birth in them a holy fear, not a cringing one, a deep sense of His holiness and the seriousness of their relationship. The goal is that they will not sin.

God’s heart for us is that we will not sin. The apostle John reminds his readers of this in 1 John 2:1,2. He says:

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. (ESV)

To sin is to damage ourselves. God’s laws are not arbitrary. They are a protection for us. We have been made in His image and when we act in unrighteousness we act contrary to what is best for us personally and for others. God loves us and longs for us to walk in holiness and be whole and healthy spiritually. There is discipline that comes from Him for sin, a discipline that is added to the already destructive consequences of our unhealthy choices. Hence the fearsome display on Mt. Sinai. But even that discipline is an act of His love.

Harry Randall Truman (October 30, 1896 – May 18, 1980) was a resident of the U.S. state of Washington who lived on Mount St. Helens. He came to brief fame in the months preceding the volcano’s 1980 eruption after he stubbornly refused to leave his home despite evacuation orders, and he is presumed to have been killed in the eruption….Truman had already emerged as a “folk hero” for his resistance to the evacuation efforts prior to his death.  After his death, his friends and family, including his sister, Geraldine (Geri), reflected on his death. Geri commented, “He was a very opinionated person.” [From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Randall_Truman> ]

We are very opinionated people, all of us, and often believe we know better than God what we should or shouldn’t do.  It costs us our lives.