The story so far: the people of Israel have been set free from slavery in Egypt. It was done miraculously – ten plagues, parting of the Red Sea, destruction of Egyptian army, provision of food and water in the wilderness, defeat of an enemy. Along the way the people managed to drive Moses to distraction with grumbling and complaining – talk about how soon we forget!

Eventually they get to a place where God has said he will meet with the people, in person, as so far all his dealings have been through Moses.

It’s a meeting like no other. To start with, there were three days of preparation, essentially for purification and establishing the ground rules. 

God was going to meet them on a mountain, except that no-one (except for Moses) would be allowed near the mountain on pain of death. They would only be able to watch and listen. 

The day came, starting with a thick cloud and thunder and lightning round the mountain. That was enough to make the people tremble, but there was more to come. Moses invited the people to come to the foot of the mountain, when God appeared in thick smoke and fire. In one sense the people were used to that as God had led them out of Egypt with pillars of smoke and fire. But this must have been something else as the whole mountain ‘trembled greatly’. A trumpet sound became louder and louder. It was terrifying.

Finally, Moses spoke then God spoke and called him to go up the mountain to tell Moses to remind the people not to come near.

What followed was the giving of the Ten Commandments. All the people heard God speaking and they were ‘afraid and trembling’. So much so that they asked Moses to speak to them and not God in case they died. Moses’ response was to tell them not to fear, but to fear God. 

It’s a great story (it’s all in Exodus 19 through to Exodus 20:21) – full of drama – but it is also the Word of God, so written for our benefit (see 2 Timothy 3:16-17). And while our situations are very different from that of some 3500 years ago, nevertheless there are some lessons.

The biggest one being that God has not changed. He is the same God today as he has always been, including that point in history, and always will be.

On this side of the Cross, the ceremony, rituals and risks associated with coming into the presence of God have been removed as Jesus has fulfilled them. Indeed we are encouraged to come to God with confidence (Hebrews 4:16 and Hebrews 10:19). But with this freer access comes the danger of complacency – taking God for granted and forgetting just who it is we are meeting with. 

We don’t need three days’ preparation, but if we come to God (personally or corporately) with no preparation, we fail to honour him. If our minds are distracted or our attitude is wrong, we do not give him the respect and awe he deserves.

Throughout the Bible, God is presented as holy and majestic. Isaiah’s vision in Isaiah 6 is a great example. Most times when people come close to God, they ‘fall down as though dead’ or are simply terrified and have to be picked up. That includes the New Testament e.g. when Jesus appears to John in Revelation 1:17. When the soldiers came to arrest Jesus before his trial and crucifixion, he simply said “I am he” and they all fell over.

Hebrews 12:29 says that ‘our God is a consuming fire’.

Now all of that is not to ignore the fact that grace is paramount. We can burst into the presence of God at a moment’s notice, in the same way that children can always go to their father. But that is an incredible privilege.

In the same way that those early Israelites forgot what God had done for them, we too can easily forget. We come to God directly and boldly because Jesus has made that possible. Meeting together, particularly when it’s around the Word, worship, or communion, is a response to God. We have been invited to come to him. When we pray, he hears us because our sinfulness (which would otherwise destroy us) has been taken away. When we meet together it is a foretaste of the ‘great multitude’ of all the saints who will stand before God in heaven. 

The last thing Moses said in the story so far was ‘do not fear, but fear God’. At face value that looks contradictory, but in fact it’s probably one of the best mottos we could have for ourselves. (Apparently the two words for ‘fear’ have different emphases in the Hebrew – the first leans more towards ‘scared’, while the second is more to do with ‘awe’.)

I read recently how our culture has got things entirely the wrong way round in that we’re afraid of everything except God. Time and again the Bible tells us not to be afraid, rather to ‘fear’ God, which is to approach him with respect, awe and trust. But remember we’re trusting in the God who is a ‘consuming fire’. 

In Matthew 10:28, Jesus says “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell”. He’s not suggesting that we worry that God could suddenly decide to do that to us – in fact he goes on to describe how deeply God cares for us. Rather it’s to remember who it is we come to. Compared to him, there’s nothing or no-one else that we need be afraid of. That’s the way ‘perfect love casts out fear’ (1 John 4:18).

God is incredibly powerful and holy, and it is he who loves us deeply. The people of Israel needed Moses to approach God on their behalf. In Jesus, we have one who is ‘greater than Moses’, who has gone before us, having sacrificed his life for us, and provided a way directly into God’s presence.

And that’s awesome.