August 24, 2003 Exodus 19, 20, 24
How do you FEEL about that? As a Lutheran, a German, and a male that question and that focus has nearly driven me nuts throughout the past years. It just isn’t natural or easy for me or most males to be “sensitive” or “emotional”. But the fact of the matter is that Christianity involves EMOTIONS. It has to. How can you say, “I believe in Christ,” without some emotion? Did you ever stop to think that Luther, the consummate male German, explained our commandments first and foremost with strong emotions, when, said “you should fear and love”.
Those words “should” and “love” just don’t go together. Imagine going up to someone and telling them, “you should love me!” Feelings aren’t things that can be commanded out of people. They’re things that come naturally. When you try to will yourself to fear or love something, it just doesn’t work very well. Yet fearing and loving are two emotions and actions that God expects of us. So you may ask yourself, “do I fear God? Do I love him? If I don’t, how can I?” The purer view we get of God - the more these emotions will naturally come about. As we look at God’s presentation of the Ten Commandments, we’ll find how it is difficult and easy it is to -
Fear and Love God
I. We fear a powerful and demanding God
When the Israelites came to Mt. Sinai, Moses said, On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. . . . 17 Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. 18 Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently, 19 and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him. (Ex 19:16-19) How did the people respond to this view of God? It says in vs. 16, Everyone in the camp trembled. When the Israelites saw this terrifying view of God - they were absolutely afraid of Him.
Sometimes I enjoy seeing God scare the daylights out of people. One of my favorite stories in the Bible is found in Daniel 5. The Babylonians had a king by the name of Belshazzar, who thought that he would make a mockery of the LORD by drinking out of the goblets that were taken from the temple in the overthrow of Jerusalem. As they sat their and drank their wine they said something like, “praise be to the gods of silver and gold! How much greater are they than that puny God of the Israelites!” God’s Word says, Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote. His face turned pale and he was so frightened that his knees knocked together and his legs gave way. (Da 5:5-6) In an instant God turned this arrogant and seemingly powerful king into a blubbering and terrified baby - falling on his knees before the LORD. Those stories are neat to me. But it seems somewhat strange for God to do that to His very children - the Israelites. If I snuck in my daughter’s room at night with a Freddie Kruger costume and scared her to death, people would call me mean and demented. Yet God does something similar to that in His presentation of the Ten Commandments.
When we really take an honest look of the God that is revealed to us in the Bible, He will scare the pants off of you. Think of what He tells us to do in the Ten Commandments. Jesus described the First Commandment - to have no other gods - in this way. Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. (Mt 10:37-38) “Murdering someone isn’t just a matter of physically killing them”, Jesus said. Even if you hate someone or get angry with them you’ve murdered them in your heart. He described the Sixth Commandment by saying that “anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:28) Even the raw Ten Commandments as found in Exodus 20 show us that breaking God’s law isn’t just a matter of not doing something wrong. Even if I want to - if I covet - I’m sinning. Therefore, when Jesus talked about going to heaven, he said, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible.” (Mt 19:24-26) Jesus once described hell as a terribly hot place where a man begged Abraham just to have someone dip his finger in water to cool the tip of his tongue. These words and commands of God paint a picture of God who does not allow sinful people into heaven. If you have ever been greedy, ever committed adultery, God says you will not inherit the kingdom of God, and you will end up separated from God in a very hot place for eternity called hell. Doesn’t that scare you?
Throughout the centuries there have been many theologians who have tried to cover up these pictures of God. They will say, “oh, God hates sin, but he loves the sinner.” Or they’ll say, “all you can do is try your hardest. That’s all God demands of us.” Even Lutherans will say, “fearing God means that we should respect Him, but not be afraid of Him.” Sunday School lessons sometimes shy away from the graphic pictures of God’s wrath - instead of saying that He put thousands of Hebrew boys to death in one night, they’ll just say, “all the boys died in one night.” But the true picture of God in the Bible can be terrifying when you really read the Bible as is. It shows us a holy God who demands nothing less than perfection and threatens you with hell if you aren’t. It’s scary.
Why did God present Himself this way? He told Moses, “I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will always put their trust in you.” (Ex 19:9) After He did this, Moses explained to the people that God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.” (Ex 20:20) The reason God presented Himself in this way was to scare His people enough so that they would listen and do what He told him to. We might call it God’s “hearing board.” That’s the only way He could get them to mind.
It’s a sad testimony to what kind of people we really are. Moses said in Genesis 6 that The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. (Ge 6:5) Even as a Christian Paul said of Himself, “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.” (Ro 7:18) When you get beyond your nice clothes and your Sunday smile - when you reach down to the innards of your soul - you’re nothing but a stubborn and selfish and arrogant sinner. You still have a part of you that doesn’t want ANYONE to tell you what to do. The only way he can be motivated is if he HAS to. And so God has to flex His muscles and threaten and condemn to get you to move. It shouldn’t have to be that way, but it is.
The sad fact is that even when God presents Himself in this way - there are still millions of people that don’t fear Him. Every day we have millions of Americans who watch pornographic TV shows, use the Lord’s name in vain, and ignore God every minute without thinking twice about it. The really sad part is that many people who call themselves Christians doing the same thing. How many of you, after you think an evil thought, or say a mean thing, think to yourself, “dear God, I beg of you, don’t send me to hell.” The sad fact is that we have members who are knowingly not praying, not reading their Word, and not forgiving, and yet acting as if it is no big deal. They think, “well, as long as I’m coming to church or praying every night, God will look over the other fifty commandments I’m breaking.” We have members who know people who don’t believe in Christ, yet say nothing to them, and act as if this is just a small sin of negligence in God’s eyes. They just assume that God will look over these sins just because they call themselves Christian, when in reality the holy God says “no, these also are serious offenses!” I wouldn’t doubt that some of you have never once been terrified by these words of God. How can you say you believe in God if you have never been scared of God’s wrath? God threatened the Israelites and made demands of them - even though He had adopted them as His children. So don’t even begin to think that you’re above His threats and judgments just because you’re Christian.
II. We love a merciful God
I realize that this picture of God may offend you. Up to this point in your life, you may have been able to somehow look at God as a big cuddly teddy bear who just smiles when you defy His law. In your sin you may have managed to reduce God down to a kind old grandpa who just pats you on the back and says, “now, now, let’s not play in that garden of lust. Let’s not put our fingers on the end table of hate.” That may be a “nice” God you’ve painted to somehow been able to stuff into your lifestyle, but it’s not the one that’s revealed on Mt. Sinai. So let’s stop pretending. Let’s look at God for what He is. Let’s get back to the real world. Because when you look at this big scary God on top of Mount Sinai, something else happens - besides sheer fear.
The fear of the Israelites motivated them to make a request of Moses. “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.” (Ex 20:19) The Israelites requested Moses to be their MEDIATOR - their go between. It’s interesting that this was the same result that happened with Job. When God appeared scary to him - unapproachable, he felt helpless - unable to do anything. So after enduring the loss of his children, his cattle, his health, and his reputation, he called out in the midst of his agony - If only there were someone to arbitrate between us, to lay his hand upon us both, someone to remove God’s rod from me, so that his terror would frighten me no more. Then I would speak up without fear of him, but as it now stands with me, I cannot. (Job 9:33-35)
When God reveals His awesome and holy power, and lays before us His unbendable will - in other words - when we see God the way He IS, there can be only one result. We first of all see that our holy God is not someone we can approach AS WE ARE. That’s why God told the people, Have them wash their clothes and be ready by the third day, because on that day the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. Put limits for the people around the mountain and tell them, ‘Be careful that you do not go up the mountain or touch the foot of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death. (Ex 19:10-12) He was telling the people very clearly - “there’s a difference between you and me, and it’s not just a matter of straightening out your tie or putting a smile on your faith. I am HOLY, you are not! You CANNOT approach me as you are!” The result of this view of God makes us say to ourselves, “I need for a mediator. Someone else has to climb this mountain, because there’s no way I can approach this holy God as I am!”
Once this concept is hammered through our thick skulls and hard hearts, this is when our scary God then comes to us in a different light. Listen to the ceremony that God performed on the people right after the giving of the Ten Commandments. He got up early the next morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve stone pillars representing the twelve tribes of Israel. Then he sent young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as fellowship offerings to the LORD. Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and the other half he sprinkled on the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people. They responded, “We will do everything the LORD has said; we will obey.” Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words. (Ex 24:4-8) What was the message God was sending to the Israelites with these sacrifices? Only with a sacrifice can you enter into a contract with me.
This need for cleansing, for a mediator, and a sacrifice were all pointing forward then, to a greater mediator to come. This covenant would remind them of a different covenant God made with Adam and Abraham. They would remember that and say to themselves, God promised a different contract to us through Abraham - where He would bless all nations without any work on our part. He promised us a mediator who would crush Satan’s head - one greater than Moses. He’s going to give more than words, He’s going to give His blood - which will make the two of us come together.
Who was that mediator? Paul told Timothy and he tells us that there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men. (1 Ti 2:5-6). Jesus Christ bridged the gap between the holy God and sinful man - when He as true God came down to earth as a man. Instead of coming in thunder and lightning, He came in a virgin’s womb. In a gentle and yet powerful way this boy became a man, and conquered the very laws that terrified us. Instead of terrifying people with His wrath, this God man then terrified Himself with His wrath. On the cross He became what He was not - sin - and we became what we were not - holy. It is through faith in that ransom - that sacrifice - that we - the once unholy - become holy in God’s sight. It’s that sacrifice that makes us able to now approach God. As the writer to the Hebrews so eloquently said - you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. (Heb 12:22-24)
The interesting picture of God that we get in these Ten Commandments is the one that is before and after the God of wrath. Before God ever lays out the Ten Commandments - before He ever comes with the thunder and lightning, God told Moses to remind the Israelites that - You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. (Ex 19:4, 20:1) With these words God paints Himself as a merciful God - like an eagle taking care of it’s young. When the eagle wants it’s young to fly, it will push it out of it’s nest, and then when it sees the baby chick give up flying and start falling to it’s death, the mother will swoop under it’s young with it’s mighty outstretched wings and catch it before it can fall. With this description of Himself, God first and foremost paints Himself as a strong God who is mighty to SAVE - without any requirements at all of his people.
After the Ten Commandments are then given, and the blood is spread on the people, what does Moses say happened next? Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up 10 and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire, clear as the sky itself. But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank. (Ex 24:9-11) After the sacrifices were made and the blood is applied, we find that although this God is HOLY and POWERFUL, He is still APPROACHABLE. The Israelite leaders actually sit there and eat and drink with God. Even though they were sinful, God didn’t raise his hands against them. Do you see the greater picture of God - even though He is scary and demanding - with sacrifice and by His mercy - through a mediator - He still allows Himself to be approached. He invites His people to come up and eat with Him. He wants to have fellowship with His people - in spite of their sin.
My friends, never lose sight of the before and after of this picture of God. Don’t forget the other picture that God draws of Himself. He is not only a God who demands and condemns in the Ten Commandments. He is also a God who fulfilled the Ten Commandments. He is not only a God who sheds blood. He is also a God who accepts blood - the blood of Jesus Christ on the cross. He is not only a God who cannot be approached, He is also a God who allows Himself to be approached. He doesn’t only put up the barriers, He also takes down the barriers. He redeems. He invites. He establishes the rules on which we can approach God.
So as you sit at the foot of Mt. Sinai and view this holy God - remember the pathway to God. Don’t try to break down the barriers. Ask for the mediator, Jesus Christ to bridge the gap. Tell Him to climb up into God’s wrath. Remember that HE boldly went up a different mount - Mount Calvary - and faced God’s wrath. Three days later He lived to tell about it. Now through Jesus, God invites you to come and approach Him. He says to you, “come up and talk to God. Feast on Me! Worship Me. I know I am holy and just, but I am also loving and forgiving. I want to have fellowship with you.” As scary as this HOLY God can be, when we go through Christ - God welcomes us and doesn’t condemn us. When we see this God, it makes us naturally say, “not only do I fear God, I also LOVE Him.”
We should fear and love God. If any of us want to even attempt to keep the Ten Commandments - we need these two emotions - to fear and love God. There are some who only fear God - who only go to worship because they are trying to stay away from God’s wrath. There are others who claim to have no fear of God, but are only motivated by love. They forget what they are on the inside, and don’t take God’s commandments seriously. If you want to have a serious relationship with God, you can’t just have one - you have to have both. We should fear and love God.
I can’t make you fear God, and I can’t make you love Him. That isn’t my job. All I can do for you is show you WHO God is and WHAT God does. Today I have attempted to take the blinders off of your eyes, to see God for who He is. He is a God who punishes, and One that forgives. One that demands, and one that gives. It sounds contradictory. But it all comes together in Christ. At the cross we see God’s wrath and His love become reconciled. In the cross we see God demand and give. We see him punish and forgive. You can close your eyes to this picture. You can call me a liar. You can say that I’ve misrepresented God. But my conscience is clear. God will be my judge. And I pray that the Holy Spirit will work through these two pictures, to produce the fear and love of God in each and every one of you, no matter how Lutheran, German, or male you may be. Amen.
