Distance

I was reading today in Exodus 19 about God telling Moses to set boundaries around Mt. Sinai to keep the Israelites from approaching. God gave specific instructions regarding this prohibition: “You shall set bounds for the people all around, saying, 'Take heed to yourselves that you do not go up to the mountain or touch its base. Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death. Not a hand shall touch him, but he shall surely be stoned or shot with an arrow; whether man or beast, he shall not live.' When the trumpet sounds long, they shall come near the mountain" (19:12-13).

Did you get that? God shows that He is holy, so much so that if someone broke this rule, then no one would even touch that person…He would be stoned or shot with an arrow instead.

Moses then climbs the mountain to meet with God, and while he probably huffs with his hands on his knees, God tells him, “Go down and warn the people, lest they break through to gaze at the LORD, and many of them perish” (21).

Moses states the obvious and reminds God of His earlier command. After all, surely His people wouldn’t transgress a clear message from the mouth of God, right?

God insists, and Moses trudges back down to the people to remind them of the serious nature of God’s holiness.

When God said, “Don’t come any closer!” the reaction was to do the thing He said to not do.

Now this holy God is the same God that we serve, the same God who has placed His Spirit into every believer, the same God we can approach with boldness because of the sacrifice of Christ…And we so often ignore Him and neglect spending time with Him, even though He made a way for us to know Him.

Given an advantage unheard of throughout the Old Testament, we chose to undervalue it.

There’s something patently wrong about that.