Part two
II. The Fear of the Lord is the Foundation for Keeping the Words of the Lord. If you have no fear of the Lord, why would you keep his words?
What we see in the Sinai experience is the direct connection between the Ten Commandments and the Presence and Power of God. At Sinai, the h generated a massive set of geophysical phenomena that was intended to impress upon Israel the awesome power and nature of the God who had brought them out of Egypt. The severity of this display was interpreted by the people as a sensory overload. It was simply more than they would allow their minds to accept. They trembled and stood far off in fear and begged Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen; but let not God speak to us, or we will die.” Exodus 20:19. They immediately began to place conditions by which they would be willing to hear the words of the Lord. They feared that anything more than this would be disastrous to them. The implication was that they were not willing to listen to the voice of the Lord. The point of significance of this display by the Lord was that the ten commandments were connected to the “thunder and the lightning flashes and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking.” Israel was being forced to conclude that the words of the Lord and the set of geophysical phenomena that accompanied it translated to sever consequences. The Lord's point in this demonstration of power was to show Israel the importance of revelation. When this principle is removed from our thinking about God we begin a rapid descent into idolatry. This is the picture we are given of man's spiritual decline in Romans 1, and this was precisely what happened to Israel in the golden calf fiasco.
Scripture has been placed by the Lord into human possession to warn us about adopting a casual attitude about the word of God. The acknowledgement of this relationship was to result in the FEAR of the LORD and in Exodus 20, it certainly did that. However, God knew that man would employ human rationalization to these events and to revelation and that eventually, truth would quickly be rationalized out of importance in Israel, which of course it was.
This casual relation cannot rationalize out of existence the power behind the words of God. Just because man removes the revelation of God from his mind does not lessen its power. Once the meaning of scripture is subjected to rationalism then it no longer connects God to time. It removes God from the world of man. When the Word of God is excised from its supreme significance it becomes reduced to nothing more than a book of history, or fiction, or literary work that is of no more value than any piece of religious work of human origin. Revealed truth was eventually dispelled from Israel and the fear of God was dispelled with it. And here we are today. Routinely, the word of God is read as nothing more that just another piece of literature. It has been robbed of its reveled significance. Consequently, there is no fear of God in the earth.
The demonstration of power at Sinai frightened Israel to such a degree that they sought a solution to lessen the assault on their senses. “Then they said to Moses, 'Speak to us yourself and we will listen; but let not God speak to us, or we will die.'”
At the heart of their request was the desire to humanize the encounter between themselves and the Lord. This way, they could soften the personal effects of their encounter with God. They did not understand the phenomenon of the fear of the Lord. To them, it was an intolerable sensation from which they sought to distance themselves.
From now on, they would have to connect the fear and power of the Lord to the words of the Lord every time they considered these commandments knowing that the Lord would be judging how they kept his commandments. To them, this sort of intrusion into their lives was completely unacceptable. Today, the Bible is read no differently. It is not permitted to intrude too far into our lives for the same reason. Human reason is routinely employed as the watchdog against the word of God to keep it at bay, to keep it at a comfortable distance. If biblical truth does not pass the muster of rationalism or 'common sense,' it is allowed to intrude no further and that is the humanization of scripture.
Humanization is a very effective deception. When Moses spoke to the people this did not diminish the power nor the demands of the words of the Lord on the people of Israel, no matter how they thought otherwise. Just the knowledge of the ten commandments or any other words from the Lord, was not enough. The fear of God has to be connected to the word of God and this in turn results in obedience to the commandments. The indispensable unity is between the word of God and the fear of God. The desert generation refused to learn and accept this providence. Humanization overruled the fear of God and consequently, it overruled the word of God in the hearts of the people.
There are two cosmologies that emerge from a study of Exodus and in truth these are the only two cosmologies that exist. Everything owes it existence to one or the other of these two. A cosmology is simply a proposed structure of things, of the universe. Everyone has a cosmology. A cosmology is how one sees the larger picture.
1. The first cosmology is the revealed word of God. This is the Lord demonstrating to man that he is real, present to human affairs, authoritative, determinate in all things, and that heistobefeared!
2. The second cosmology is humanism. This cosmology is based solely on man himself as the causative agency. Humanism reverses the true understanding of the universe that is supplied by revelation. Moses was to say to Israel, “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing loving kindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” Exodus 20:4-6. The operative term here is “You shall not make.” This is the human cosmology in full bloom. By so doing, man presumes to determine what reality is. He decides what is true. He fashions his own objects of worship. As a matter of historical record, people prefer the humanistic cosmology precisely because it is man made. Man regards himself as the supreme causative agent and elevates himself to the position of God. Yet, God has said, “You shall not make for yourself an idol” representing anything!