Sermon for Saturday
For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness and darkness and tempest. Hebrews 12:18
No Israelite who was there that day could ever forget the great manifestation of the power of God at Mount Sinai. The tremendous thunderings and quakings would reverberate through their lives, as they would remember how God made His presence felt. They would shiver in remembrance, and hope to never experience such frightening events again. How much better it was to have Moses go and speak with God instead of having God address the entire nation! And, today, we say how much better to have one intercede with God who is far higher and greater than Moses!
The awesome presence of the Almighty is not something that we appreciate today. We never heard or felt Sinai’s power. We know nothing of the unleashing of God’s manifestation of His presence, although the heart of a severe thunderstorm can sometimes seem close. It is difficult to imagine the dread that the Israelites felt as they gathered at Sinai’s base when all we have is the Bible’s description of it. Not even a video or a sound clip! We can’t imagine how frightened and shaken those folks were, and our text makes it plain that we never will. Ours is a different time and dispensation. Ours is the calm assurance sins forgiven and peace with God, with no dread of dire judgment for breaches of the Law of God. The storm to be unleashed against sin, with all of its dire warnings at Sinai, has already broken on Another. And He Who exhausted the judgment that we deserve now stands as our advocate to make sure we never experience the terror of God’s wrath. But sometimes, the position that we occupy seems to remove us from the awe that we should feel when considering the God Who is our Lord.
Take our remembrance meetings, for example; how often does the reality grip us that we are sitting in the Presence of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Creator and Sustainer of all things, the God of eternity? As we view the wonders and mysteries of creation, does our heart ever skip a beat at the realization of the wisdom and power of its Creator? As we consider the ugliness of sin and the wretchedness of our own hearts, does it ever grip us that God is holy and righteous beyond our understanding?
Contemplating the awesome demonstration of God’s power and holiness at Sinai might help us today to appreciate Him Who has delivered us from Sinai’s dread. –Jim MacIntosh