It gives you a chance to meet the One you always knew was there:

It is such a blessing to be able to study the word of God. It helps us to understand the heart, and plans of the One that has created us. I am reminded of a story in the Old Testament that is New Testament language on the pages of the Old Testament. The Israelites were given the opportunity to leap-frogging to a new level of intimacy with God. They had a chance to meet the One that they always knew was there.

                God told Moses “to go unto the people, and sanctify them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their clothes, and be ready against the third day: for the third day the Lord will come down in the sight of all the people upon Mount Sinai”.

When the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount

Although the first generation of Israelites gather around the mountain would ultimately believe the fearful spies and shrink away from the promised land in fear, But I believe that the real cause of their failure is found right there at the foot of Mount Sinai. God intended for all the Israelites to come close to Him on the mountain, but they were uncomfortable. Listen what the word of God say they did.

And all the people saw the thundering, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off.

                And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die. And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that His fear may be before your faces that ye sin not. And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.

A lot like us, the children of Israel seen a change (thunder, Lightning) taking place, and they shrank back in fear. In other words they ran from His presence instead of pursuing Him as Moses did. They were unhappy with the style of leadership that God had chosen. God couldn’t lay down His identity as the Almighty God just to please man then, and He won’t do it today either. So the end result of their flight from holy intimacy that day was that they died before they or their children ever entered the Promised Land. They preferred distant respect over intimate relationship.

                It wasn’t God’s original plan for the first generation of Israelites to die in the wilderness. He wanted to take them from bondage into the promise! That’s what He wants to do with us as well; bringing us out of Egypt (sinful life style) into the promise land (intimacy with Him). Moses assignment (the Pastor) was to bring the Israelites (Gods chosen people, that’s you) to His holy Mountain, to help sanctify them (wash them through the word of God) or help them change. There is the problem. Change! They didn’t want to live by the laws of the Kingdom. Their doom was sealed when they looked across the Jordan at the promise land and shrank back, but it really began when they shrank back from God’s presence in the cloud on Mount Sinai. It was there that they ran from God and demanded that Moses stand between them. (The Church has been suffering from the same problem ever since.) What I am saying is that we often prefer that a man stand between us and God. We have a hell-inspired, fleshly fear of holy intimacy with God. The roots of this fear reach all the way back to the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve hid in shameful fear while God longed for sweet fellowship.

                Now look closely at your local church. I can almost guarantee you that some of the people in the congregation, and in your family or even some friends, were there in the beginning. Others came a few months later or several years later. Some are brand-new believers or at least new arrivals. Then you have those that were, and always talking about those that are. God has brought all of you to the Mountain today. You who were “not a people,” have been made a people. God took all of us out of slavery of sin. He’s pulled some of us out of bad marriages. Others were delivered from the bondage of alcoholism and other chronic substance-abuse problems. We’ve been delivered from joblessness and destitution, chronic depression, and too many other pits of hell to mention. In the end, we have all wound up together at the foot of His Mountain hearing His call to come closer. Now we face the same challenges as the children of Israel thousands of years ago: Do we run away or go in? Into what? Into His presence. Some are satisfied with being at the foot of the Mountain (being in church), for some it’s ok to of had received the Laws of God. But we need to remember that something else happened at the foot of the mountain too. Remember the (golden calf). The same thing happens today in our churches. We create idols, by being religious.

                I am thankful that the Lord has brought me out of my Egypt’s, but frankly! I say thank You Lord….but where’s the rest? There’s got to be more! Show me Your glory!”

I realize that one of Satan’s most successful tricks is to get us to race to a false finish lines. He works tirelessly to get us to stop short, and say, “We made it!” He delights when he sees us fall or pull over to the wayside only to notice at the last moment that the finish line is still ahead. That’s what the apostle meant when he spoke, “I press toward the mark, forgetting those thing that are behind.

                God revealed on Mount Sinai that He wanted to begin dealing with the people directly and personally. Until that day Moses had always relayed to the Israelites everything that God said. That was a time of transition, a period in which God was saying, Okay, it’s time to grow up. I want to talk to you directly from now on as an entire nation of holy priests. I don’t want to have to speak through him to reach you. I want to deal with you directly as My nation, as My people. But unfortunately, the Israelites suffer from the same problem many Christians do today. We have become addicted to the anointing, the relayed word of good preaching and teaching. Too many of us have become “milk babies” who want to sit on padded pews in air-conditioned and climate-controlled building where someone else will pre-digest what God has to say and then regurgitate it back to us in a half-digested form. (We’re afraid of getting “spiritual indigestion” from messages we think are “too rough” to handle.) Tender tummies are unused to tough truth!

                The solution is hunger and desperation for God Himself without intermediaries. We need to pray, “God, I’m tired of everybody else hearing from You! Where is the lock on my prayer closet? I’m going to lock myself away until I hear from You for myself!”I will be sanctified by your word; I will wash my clothes in righteousness.

                The Holy Spirit is saying, I know it’s great that I’ve brought you out of sin and your clothes aren’t wearing out. You are living in a measure of blessing, and you have My presence revealed in the cloud and the fire every day. I know you got good leadership, but what I really want is this: I want to grow you up and I want to pull you in a new level of intimacy.”

 In my conclusion when the Israelites told Moses that they were afraid, he tried to explain to them. Fear not, God is only trying to prove you. That thunder and lightning reminds you of His awesome power so that you won’t sin. You see, He just wanted you to come clean so He can talk to you”. That’s what He is saying to us today. Isn’t it amazing how ponderous and heavy your parents’ footsteps seemed to be when you heard them come in your direction, especially at those times when you were doing something you shouldn’t have been doing? Saints God always start with the leadership, and Moses had already stepped into that thick darkness once before on the mountaintop. At this point, God wanted the rest of the Israelites to join Moses in His presence, but they ran away instead.

                It appears to me that the history of the Jewish people went downhill from the moment God said, “Come near,” and they said, “No way.” And it is abundantly clear that this problem isn’t unique to the Israelites of Moses’ day-it is also a serious problem in the Church today. They wanted to date God; but He want to make a bride out of them.  He wanted intimacy, they knew that meant commitment, and that it doesn’t come cheap! So they moved away from God instead of coming closer to Him.

Don’t just stand at the mountain, move into the dark smoke. The place of intimacy with the one you always knew was there.