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Exodus 20:20-21
Excerpted from: Trumpets: Glorious Appearings

This was after all this display. It is probably at this point dying down, or had already died down, and the commandments had been given:

This was the reason. Moses explains why God put on this awe inspiring spectacle. It comes in three parts. First, it was a test of their faithfulness and obedience. Second, He wanted to impress upon them the fear of the Lord. I think He succeeded. Three, He wanted to dissuade them from sin. So He had to test them, to impress upon them the fear of the Lord, and to keep them from sinning. These are all wrapped up in one another.

This exhibition of His glory was to expose the state of their hearts. That is what a test does. It exposes deficiencies. Or it can expose proficiencies, if one passes the test. But it was to expose the state of their hearts in relation to Him. He was the One producing all this fear. He was the One who had the trumpets blaring. He was the One who was causing the lightning to strike, which caused the thunder to rumble. He was the One who caused the earthquake. He was the One who came down in the smoke, and great clouds. Their fear was not just their reactions only to these things, but also to the power behind them—the Person who was the Power who caused these things.

In the carnal Israelites, God knew what he was getting. He knew what they were. He knew the state of their heart already, but He wanted to test them under these extreme conditions.

At the very least He expected to see the realization or the recognition of His power, just so they can get a bit of a gauge of where they stood in terms relative of power. Maybe that is all that He wanted. He wanted to impress upon them that He was no ordinary god. The gods of Egypt had proved themselves weak. He had proved Himself stronger than they. But, when He got them alone in the wilderness to give them His law, He showed them as much as they could handle what they were really dealing with.

Exodus 20:20-26
Excerpted from: The Second Commandment: Idolatry

As we turn to Numbers 33, it might be helpful to remember that in the Holy of Holies there was no representation of God whatsoever. The object (if I can put it that way) most commonly used in biblical description for worshipping God, or indicating that worship of God is taking place, is an altar. But even here it is very interesting. You can check this out later in Exodus 20:20-26. God forbid that all the altars, except for the brazen altar that was set up in front of the Tabernacle and then later the Temple, had to be made out of nothing more than dirt stacked up to make something they could burn on, set a grate on top, or made of uncut stones. It could not have even the sculpting of the stones in any way.

God is reminding you and me—in even such a thing like the altar, insisting that it be made out of dirt or uncut stone—that everything we touch with our hands we defile. God does not want to be worshipped by people with defiled hands. Hands signify work. God has to be worshipped in spirit by means of faith: faith in His character; faith in what He really is; faith in His grace; faith in His kindness; faith in His mercy; faith in the fact that He says, "I will never leave you or forsake you"; faith that He says "I will hear your prayers. I will respond at the right time and the right place for your benefit or for somebody else's benefit that you are praying for. I will follow through." With that kind of an attitude we can worship God and keep the second commandment, because our dirty hands are not creating a concept of Him that is untrue.

Exodus 20:18-21
Excerpted from: Government (Part 2)

This is just about where we got to last week. God spoke directly to the assembled Israelites, and He was communicating with them directly—even as I showed you that God communicated with Abraham ("the father of the faithful") directly—thus establishing a pattern that is going to be duplicated somewhere along the line. And it is going to be important to you and to me in terms of this government that we have come under.

God also communicated directly to Moses. Now here He is communicating directly to the children of Israel, but He did it in such a way as to inject a sense of the awesomeness of this privilege that He was extending to this people. That is, the privilege of having direct access to Him! Not through intermediaries, but He was offering them the opportunity to have direct access to Him. But He wanted them to know that this is a very great responsibility!

We see that they very quickly rejected it. And they asked Moses to stand between them and God. Moses, then, officially becomes "mediator." He was performing this function before, but now it is official—he will stand between them and God. So his responsibility was as an advocate of the people; that is, he laid the people's problems before God, but he was also an interpreter of God to the people. So, he was "the go-between."

Exodus 20:18-21
Excerpted from: Government (Part One)

At this time, brethren, when God was about to begin His formal governance of Israel, His people, those who had consented to be ruled by Him, there was nobody between them and God. There was no governmental structure. God spoke to them face to face, and they rejected it!

I believe that Exodus 20 was indicating that God was prepared to do for the entire nation of Israel the same as He had done with Abraham, with Moses, and with others as well. But He presented Himself in such a way as to impress upon them the weighty responsibility of such a situation. (Paul said, "Our God is a consuming fire.") And they quickly chose a mediator to stand between them and God.

The Sabbath Written By the Finger of God  

Sermons

The Doctrine of Israel (Part Two): The Old Covenant  

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