The Gift of Steadfast Love (Ex. 20-21)

As I read through Exodus once again, I see the stark contrast of Moses’ faith and close relationship to God set against the distant fear and lack of relationship of the people he was shepherding with the One true God of Israel.

Chapter 19 finds Moses and the people three months into the wilderness at the foot of Mt. Sinai on a very dark night (Why have I never really noticed the new moon in the first verse of this chapter?). Moses has ears to hear God speaking to him, but the people do not hear the voice that called to Moses out of the mountain when they first arrived. They have seen the things God has done for them and through Moses upon their exit from Egypt and in the wilderness, but they have no relationship with God nor has God yet allowed them to hear His voice clearly or draw near and understand. 

In verse 9, God tells Moses what He is about to do—allow the people to hear when Him speak to Moses—and then tells Moses why He is doing so—that they may believe him forever. Moses does not need this confirmation of who God is and what He is doing. He already believes and has acted on this belief when God had called to him from the burning bush quite a while back in Exodus 3. God is about to demonstrate His purpose, His faithfulness, His ability to sustain, His patience, His holiness, His worthiness, and so much more. He is demonstrating visibly who and what He is to this formerly enslaved wilderness people led secondarily by a man who has climbed up and down a mountain 7,500 feet high several times at God’s command to prepare for God’s meeting with His people. 

The mountain of God has no escalator for that steep climb that probably took at least four-plus hours to climb up and then about the same to come back down—obedience is not an easy task in this tent in which we dwell. Moses does a lot of climbing and relaying to get close to God and then to convey His specific messages to the people he is shepherding through the wilderness. He climbed. And he climbed. And he climbed. And we know he did so without grumbling or complaint, else as Deuteronomy 32:48-52 makes clear, the journey would have ended much sooner than the 40 years he spends leading the people in the wilderness.

This gift of obedience to God without grumbling no matter the cost to himself by Moses caught my attention today. Even on the darkest night in a vast wilderness while hearing the voice of God that no one else could hear, Moses believed God. Hebrews 11: 27 tells this: “By faith he [Moses] left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible” (NIV, emphasis mine). Moses heard what others could not hear and saw what others could not see; he listened, looked to God alone, and followed Him where no rational person would go, and I am so grateful he had the faith to do so gifted to Him by God who also offers that same gift to us in Christ Jesus and His Spirit that dwells in those who follow Him.

As David writes in Ps. 55:22, Moses chooses to cast his burden on the Lord, and the Lord sustains him, not permitting his faith to fail even though the task is beyond what one man could bear. The Lord sustains him (not Moses’ own strength or will or ability) to do what He has called him to do.

The Fear of God

Then chapter 20 comes and the people stand trembling in fear and the mountain shook alongside them at the presence of God. The smoke swirls in a thick cloud around them, and God’s voice answers Moses’ call with thunder after loud trumpets blast louder and louder announcing His presence there. As lightning flashes around these terrified people, Moses goes up one more time to God, and God tells him again to go back down again and warn the people he has already warned and prepared and consecrated to stand back from the edge of the mountain lest they die. Then Moses goes back down again and obeys and brings Aaron back  up with Him. And then God speaks audibly to a people gathered expectantly with much fear at the foot of the smoky mountain surrounded by the presence of God. 

He begins His discourse to them with the topic of idolatry, which they have just been called out of in Egypt. OUT is repeated in the opening verses of the chapter, then these words are spoken: “You shall have no other gods before me.” In other words, lest it isn’t clear who God is to them, He tells them directly not to try to worship Him AND anything else. Nothing can be added successfully to the worship of God. 

God alone. Period.

If these people in the midst of a vast wilderness with no present, direct influence from a worldly culture other than their memories of it could not abstain from worldliness and idolatry and choose not to do so with God visibly and audibly in their presence after direct miracles have been performed, what makes us think we are not much more vulnerable to the influence of the world around us? Christians who have it easy (like we have it easy here in the U.S. right now) and live in a godless culture that worships materialism and selfishness and independence are at risk of succumbing to idolatry and never even realizing it. We are at risk.

The Command

Exodus 20:5-6 almost leaped from the page of my Bible as I read it this morning: 

You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments (ESV).

The avoidance of idolatry is connected to the love of God above all else and the obedience that flows from that love for Him. The consequences God mentions to His chosen people in the desert offers a stark contrast: worship Me alone and gift thousands of generations of your children that are to come with the blessings of my steadfast love [LOVE GOD] OR try to add in other things to worship as you follow Me and leave the curse of sin behind for several generations [HATE GOD].

Hard Questions

I must ask myself every time I read this whether or not I am loving God alone or trying to add something else to that, something that has insidiously snuck in (or that has been blatantly invited by me) and diverted my sole love for God, turning my worship into idolatry. The answer isn’t always a quick evaluation and fix. I can't always see objectively the truth of what I have become. Sometimes it takes time to become an idolator, whether willing or not, and if I find sin in myself, the discipline of God may not be quick. The forgiveness that comes with repentance is instant (1 Jn. 1:5-10), but the consequence of sin may be long lasting. Discipline is never pleasant at the time (Heb. 12:11), but it is life-giving, and it is there that my thoughts have taken me today.

The Best Gift

The best gift we can give our children and the generations that will follow them is our steadfast love of the Lord, a life lived tremblingly in awe of who God is (which He has clearly demonstrated through His Word) in complete obedience and genuine repentance when we seem to fall short (because we will still struggle with sin while we are in this flesh) of the goal. We, too, must cast our burdens ONTO the Lord, who will sustain us, who will never permit us (whom He has made to be righteous because of Christ’s work in us) to be moved from His love or permanently separated from it. 

God, help me! In Jesus' name.