The manifestation of God's glory at Sinai.
I. THE PURPOSE OF THIS MANIFESTATION. God made this purpose known beforehand; and it was that the people who saw and heard these dreadful phenomena might believe Moses for ever, might permanently acknowledge his authority as a messenger and representative of God. When Moses was at Sinai before and then entrusted with a Divine message to Israel, he urged it as one of his difficulties that Israel would not believe him. "They will say, the Lord hath not appeared unto thee" (Exodus 4:1). Now without appeal in any way from Moses, Jehovah provides a sublime demonstration of his presence, which he expressly mentions as being intended to establish the position of Moses. Testimony must always be chosen corresponding with the character and circumstances of those to whom it is presented. There is a time when it will do to change the rod into a serpent; and so there is a time when the same people before whom this was done must be confronted with all the terrors of Sinai. It was a great defect on the part of the people that they had no adequate sense—it may almost be said they had no sense at all—of the holiness of God. Upon the slightest interference with their self-indulgent desires, they broke out into reproach, almost into rebellion. Therefore, in the very midst of gracious and unfailing providences, they must be made to feel that it is a fearful thing as well as a happy thing to fall into the hands of the living God. He is ever loving and desires our good; but he is also supreme in holiness, and in all our thoughts he must be hallowed as one who, when the need appears, can make most terrible manifestations of his power. We must be alive to God's presence in the terrible and destructive phenomena of the natural world as much as in those which are gentle, attractive, and pleasing. By the terrors of Sinai he intimated to his people, once for all, that he was a God not to be trifled with, but one who demanded careful and humble attention at all times when he expressed his will.
II. THE PREPARATION FOR IT WHICH HAD TO BE MADE BY THE PEOPLE. The manifestation was not to come at once; the people had to wait for it; but waiting was not all. The waiting indeed was necessary that they might have sufficient opportunity to prepare. Even already it was being signified to them that in external things, and even in such a slight matter as the washing of the clothes, they were to be a holy people. All the defilements gathered by the way, all the dust of the conflict with Amalek had to be washed off; and short of water as they had lately been, God, we may be sure, provided an abundant supply before giving this command. He required his people through certain symbolic actions to enter into a special state of readiness for himself. Then when they were so far ready by what they did to themselves, they must take further special precautions not to enter on the holy ground. As God took from the dwellers of the earth the house of Jacob to be his holy nation, so he took these steeps of Sinai to be a holy place for himself. Evidently all these preparations being of the character they were, must have produced a state of mind full of expectation and suspense. God fixed the very day of this appearing. This is a thing he can do, sure that the reality will not fall short of the popular notion formed beforehand. But there is another great day of the Lord; and the precise point of this in time no man knoweth. It was in mercy that the date of the visitation on Sinai was made known to Israel; it is in equal mercy that the great day of the Lord yet remaining is veiled, as to its date, from us. Those who live as they ought to live, trusting in Christ and knowing the indwelling of the Spirit, are doing that which secures present profit and blessedness, makes meet for the inheritance of the saints in light, and at the same time adequate preparation for the trials of the last great day. There is no way of being ready for them except to live near to God in prayer and faith and faithfulness in little things. Believe in Christ, and show your faith by your works, and then you are ready whatever comes.
III. THE MANIFESTATION ITSELF AND ITS EFFECTS. Precisely how the manifestation was to take place does not seem to have been indicated beforehand; and even as it stands described by all those terrible terms, thunder, lightning, the smoking and the quaking mount, we feel that the reality must far have transcended the power of human speech to describe. It was truly an unspeakable visitation. The word telling us most is that which says that before this visitation all the people trembled. Evidently it had an overwhelming effect upon them. It is made perfectly plain that when God cannot draw men by love, he can hold them fast by fear. If they will not go like invited children in his way, they are shaken nolentes volentes out of their own. Whatever else men may refuse to God, love, worship, service,—this at all events is ensured, that they shall be terrified before him. They have no choice. The earth cannot but quake when he sets to work the mighty hidden powers underneath. And so the most atheistic life must acknowledge by its disturbed emotions that there is a power it cannot resist. The boasted discipline and sovereignty of human reason count for nothing then. The earthquake without gets its due result from the quaking heart within. Man may set up his will against God's will; but that only means that he refuses obedience; he cannot keep God from shaking him to the very foundations of his being. Though the people in a few months left Sinai, yet Sinai in a very important sense followed them. The fire that went out from the Lord and devoured Nadab and Abihu—the fire that burned at Taberah among the complaining people (Numbers 11:1)—the opening earth and the devouring fire at the time of the conspiracy of Korah (Numbers 16:1-50.)—what are all these but proofs of the God of Sinai travelling in all his terror and glory along with Israel and making sharp visitations in the hour of worldliness, unbelief, and negligence? Those trained in idolatry may well become sceptical and end in utter unbelief, for they never see anything in the way of subduing power save the power of knavish priests over superstitious devotees. There are great pretensions and professions, but never anything done corresponding with them. But here as Jehovah begins to specify his requirements, he first of all shows his power in the most impressive way. As an Israelite looked back on Sinai, whatever other feelings he might have, he could not deny the terrible reality that was there. And one very remarkable thing is, that through all this thunder and lightning, smoking and quaking, there was no actual destruction. If there had been such, it would certainly have been recorded. But so far from this being the case, there were special and very earnest directions in order to avert it (Exodus 19:12,Exodus 19:13, Exodus 19:21, Exodus 19:24.) So long as they kept outside the Divinely appointed barrier and observed the cleansing regulations, neither life nor property was lost. Sinai, with all its undescribed terrors, was not Vesuvius: the people beneath were not gathered in a doomed Herculaneum or Pompeii. The purpose of Jehovah was simply to manifest the reality, extent, and proximity of his destroying power. Men were made to feel what it could do, if they were so presumptuous or negligent as to come within its rightful exercise.—Y.
HOMILIES BY J. URQUHART