Exodus 19:18

We had heard the evening before that fires were burning in the woods surrounding my mother's house in Southeastern Kentucky, but it seemed that all was under control. When I learned the next morning how close those fires had come and how shaken she was, I cleared my schedule and rushed over. My sister also went, prepared to spend a couple of days.

 

Thankfully none of my mother's property was damaged, though forty feet from her house the woods were scorched. Dedicated and caring firefighters went the extra mile to make sure she was never in imminent danger.

 

As I drove away that afternoon, I saw smoke rising from many spots on Pine Mountain. Though I could not see the flames, I knew they were there and that they were consuming whatever lay in their path. We take for granted those who fight fires until it threatens us or those we love.

 

Incidents like these help us understand the reaction of the people of Israel as they gathered to hear God pronounce laws for their new nation. Exodus 19:18 describes the scene: "Now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly."

 

The Israelites reacted as any of us probably would: "... when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. Then they said to Moses, 'You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die" (Exodus 20:18,19).

 

The fears of the people were legitimate. As Moses later warned the people against turning from God to serve idols, he reminded them of God's powerful wrath: "For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God'" (Deuteronomy 4:24).

 

There are many views of God, depending on whom you consult. Some see Him as a kindly old grandfather who would never speak a cross word. Others view Him as a stern "hanging judge" who doesn't have time to consider the details of our case. Some argue that God isn't even around anymore; He has wondered off to attend to other business.

 

Shouldn't our view of God be formed by what He has revealed about Himself?

 

An inspired author, writing hundreds of years after that encounter at Mt. Sinai, reminded his readers of the fact that "our God is a consuming fire", recalling details of the burning mountain (Hebrews 12:29). But we can have a different perspective of God, he wrote. "But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels ... to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel" (Hebrews 12:22,24).

 

There is good reason to tremble at the thought of the wrathful God. But those who come to God through His Son Jesus Christ don't have to be terrified. They can see through the ascending smoke that God is their heavenly Father. How will you choose to approach God?

 

Timothy D. Hall