Is I Going To Die?

Exodus 20:18-21

Guardrails

Jono and I were turning left.

I was driving my 1986 gray Honda Prelude. Low to the ground. Sports car (because it had two doors… not because it had anything else going for it). Hand-me down old beater car, picking up Jono from a baseball game, and I am turning left across the widest street ever. It looked like 6 lanes wide.

I remember thinking… this street is oddly wide. But then a magical gap opened in traffic, and my 17 year-old self knows, this is the moment, I just have to gun it and go.

So I do. I cross 2 or 3 lanes of track of traffic on my left turn when I notice something important.

There was a street I was turning left onto, that wasn’t the problem.

The problem was that the street I was turning left onto did not connect to the street I was on. It connected to another road that ran parallel to the road I was on with a giant concrete island curb thingy running between them. It wasn’t 6 lanes. It was a street. Barrier. Another street side by side.

Stupid right? I thought so too.

Have you ever suddenly, unquestioningly realized “I am beyond the boundaries?” I have smashed beyond the limits of what is good for me, what is normal, what is right, what I can handle… what my car can handle…

And have you ever wondered in that moment…

Is I going to die? Proper grammar goes right out the window.

I can’t stop! Cars are coming right at me, I am shooting the gap…

By bumper scrapes across the island’s curb. My front tires hit the curb and BAM! The front half of my car goes flying up in the air.

I almost lost my cool for a moment… as I screamed like a little girl.

I have enough forward momentum that as the underside of my car slams into the barrier, it is past the half point… so that as my whole car pivots on this large concrete island, scraping along, my front tires hit the ground on the other side… and it is front wheel drive.

That pulls my back tires to slam into the curb again, popping up the back half of my car. Which slams back down and we drive safely and calmly.

By some miracle, my car still works. I turn right, proceed to the point where there is an actual intersection. Steer back onto the road and calmly, safely, obeying all traffic laws, drive back home.

The Circle of Fear and Guilt

I don’t think I ever told that particular story to my parents. But I remember the absolute terror. The feeling that I was committed and had lost all choices, I was outside the bounds, I had no control, and maybe I was going to die.

As we have worked our way through the 10 commandments, I have repeatedly described these as the “Course of Righteousness.” Signposts that say “You have gone too far.” Concrete barriers intended to protect human life, safety, property, marriage, integrity. To protect divine worship, holiness and always to teach us to love God and love each other. It is a road. The Road of Righteousness.

And maybe every week. Maybe once. We heard one of the commands and recognized that we were off the road. We were slamming into the barrier, we are past the barrier. We see righteousness and we recognize that isn’t us.

And our appropriate human response to that is Guilt and Fear. This goes all the way back to the first time these words were spoken.

Book

Exodus 20:18-21

18 When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance 19 and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.”

20 Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.”

21 The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.

Now recall back to the sermon before we kicked fully into the Top 10 Words. It was awhile ago. God inhabited this mountain, and it was terrifying. It was Mount Doom. Thunder and lightning.

But at first the people were curious. They were interested. God told them not to get too close, implying that perhaps some wanted to. And then… God began to speak.

Now there was plenty going on that was terrifying. There was thunder and lightning, trumpets, a smoking mountain. As we said, this was Mount Doom. But that was also all happening before God started speaking. Something shifted in the course of God speaking these 10 words.

The people of God became terrified.

These 10 commandments are repeated in Deuteronomy 5, and Moses recalls this encounter and adds in some of the missing details.

Deuteronomy 5:22-29

22 These are the commandments the LORD proclaimed in a loud voice to your whole assembly there on the mountain from out of the fire, the cloud and the deep darkness; and he added nothing more. Then he wrote them on two stone tablets and gave them to me.

23 When you heard the voice out of the darkness, while the mountain was ablaze with fire, all the leading men of your tribes and your elders came to me.

24 And you said, “The LORD our God has shown us his glory and his majesty, and we have heard his voice from the fire. Today we have seen that a man can live even if God speaks with him. 25 But now, why should we die? This great fire will consume us, and we will die if we hear the voice of the LORD our God any longer. 26 For what mortal man has ever heard the voice of the living God speaking out of fire, as we have, and survived? 27 Go near and listen to all that the LORD our God says. Then tell us whatever the LORD our God tells you. We will listen and obey.”

28 The LORD heard you when you spoke to me and the LORD said to me, “I have heard what this people said to you. Everything they said was good. 29 Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!

They were terrified. Why? They saw the glory of the Lord and heard his voice from the fire.

And they knew they simply couldn’t take any more.

And, this is what really blows me away, Yahweh, the LORD, hears them say this, and He says “Yup. Accurate. “Everything they said was good.”

They were guilty. They were full of Fear. And they were right.

Is I Going to Die?

Now everything about this whole encounter is terrifying… but what led to the sure knowledge that they would simply die if they were in the presence of God any longer, if they stood near to listen?

Was it just the volume of God’s voice? If that were the case, you freak out at the second word. “I am the LORD” OOOOWOWWWW. Stop. Too loud. Moses, you go. You’re old and hard of hearing, God’s freaky loud voice isn’t too loud for you.

The voice maybe was awesome, awful, in every sense. The atmosphere was dramatic and terrifying. But the Israelites made it through the 10 words… and at that point, they knew they could hear no more.

What if it was, on top of the voice and the thunder and lightning, on top of all of that, they heard the content of God’s 10 words, his path of Righteousness, and KNEW that they were unrighteous.

With sudden clarity, they were rocking along, and they suddenly see… the barrier looming before them. And as God continues to speak, as conviction rocks their world, they realize they have smashed right off the path of righteousness. They are past the barrier, they are on the wrong side of this road.

And they are going to die. The experience of hearing the law, of seeing what Righteousness actually looks like… and then comparing it against my life. Of seeing God’s heart… and then seeing my heart.

Maybe they could convince themselves for the first few. No manipulating God through idols or manipulating others through his name? Well, that is most of the point of religion, but I suppose I could stop doing that.

No other gods? Kind of greedy, but this God seems pretty powerful, so we can do that.

Sabbath? We just sort of started that, and there’s not much choice with the Manna, so okay.

Honoring parents? Have you met my parents?

No murder? What about hatred, murder of the heart?

Absolute covenant faithfulness to my spouse? Have you met my spouse? What about in the secret of my imagination?

And it gets worse. No thieving. How are we going to get ahead in life? Integrity in dealing with one another, not bearing false witness.

And then… and this is so straight to the heart… no coveting what someone else owns. But that is the human experience? That is so much of life! That is so internal, so unenforceable, such a matter of the heart…

And if this is God’s standard… then I am on the wrong side of His boundary.

A descendant of these first hearers described his encounter with the law this way centuries later.

Romans 7:7-10

7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.

I heard the commands… and then I knew… I was dead. Now I had a name for the sin. I could put my finger on it. I could see the boundary.

I ran into the boundary. My whole world shook. The front of my car smashed up in front of me. I knew I was dead.

They were convicted. They knew they were unworthy of the presence of God. They were unworthy of the voice of God.

An Intercessor

And so… they begged for someone to stand between them and God. An intercessor. An intermediary. Someone to approach God and get the details while they nursed the death inside of them. While they recovered from conviction.

They sent one of them up before God to get all the details. And they swore that they would obey whatever came back down.

They were committed, they were convicted, they really were going to TRY. And why not? They had discovered their sin, they knew death awaited them, they were afraid… and few things motivate a human being like fear. And God knew this… He says this, and hear the yearning in it:

Deuteronomy 5:29

29 Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!

They fear me, and rightly so, for I am terrifying. And what a starting point, if they stayed there, they could keep my commands and it would be so good for them…

Fear can get you started.

But what is implied here. But they won’t. They won’t. Fear can get you started… but it can’t keep you going. Fear wears off. The strange and amazing spectacle of God… it becomes the mundane and tedious stuff of life. You get used to it. The people of Israel got used to manna miraculously appearing on the ground… and they got tired of that!

Fear can get you started… but it can’t keep you going.

And Moses was the greatest intercessor the people of Israel ever had. A prophet in a class all by himself. And he got the details, we’ll hear a bit about that. He saw a greater glimpse of God… we will hear about that.

But from this moment, from the start surely, God knew that Moses could never save His people.

“Oh… that they would keep my commands always…. Oh, if only that were the road… Oh, if only you humans could keep your promises like that… It would save you so much pain… So much death… so much darkness… Oh…”

And if you and I were there that day. We would have afraid. We would not have been able to approach Mt. Sinai. We would have died.

And with all the best intentions we might have said out of that moment of revelation and fear “we are unrighteous now, so we are afraid, but we will obey everything from now on!”

And God said “Oh that you would!”

The Ultimate Intercessor

And so… God sent his son. The intercessor. He chased after all those children who could not approach the mountain. Man could not approach the glory of God.

So God hid His glory in a Man.

Paul continues his encounter with the law with His encounter with the Intercessor. Law exposed the death within him, condemning him.

Romans 8:1-3

8 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.

The fear at Mount Sinai was a starting place. Fear can get you started… but I can’t keep you going. Law can show you what Righteousness looks like, but only as one terrified, standing outside the bounds… and knowing there is no way to get back on the path of life.

The concrete barrier, it has no power to bring you back onto the Road of Righteousness, it only marks out the edges!

Jesus picks you up off the side of the road. Cleans you up. Carries you back on to the Road of Righteousness and (better yet) says “I’m going to drive.” Because 16 or 17 year-olds are terrible drivers!

Imagine this in that context of Mount Doom. All the people terrified. The voice of God giving the Law. A Law laying out Righteousness…

But Jesus comes down from the mountain, grabs your hand, and says, “It’s okay, I’ve taken care of all of it. Now come see the top of the mountain, it’s amazing.”

I didn’t make up this transformation of the image of Mount Sinai, the author of Hebrews did.

Hebrews 12:18-24 (Message)

18-21 Unlike your ancestors, you didn’t come to Mount Sinai—all that volcanic blaze and earthshaking rumble—to hear God speak. The earsplitting words and soul-shaking message terrified them and they begged him to stop. When they heard the words—“If an animal touches the Mountain, it’s as good as dead”—they were afraid to move. Even Moses was terrified.

22-24 No, that’s not your experience at all. You’ve come to Mount Zion, the city where the living God resides. The invisible Jerusalem is populated by throngs of festive angels and Christian citizens. It is the city where God is Judge, with judgments that make us just. You’ve come to Jesus, who presents us with a new covenant, a fresh charter from God. He is the Mediator of this covenant. The murder of Jesus, unlike Abel’s—a homicide that cried out for vengeance—became a proclamation of grace.

Grace to You

We get caught in the cycle of Guilt and Fear.

We know about Grace. But we often wallow in Guilt.

We put our Faith in Jesus. But we spend a whole lot of our lives in Fear of the very condemnation Jesus frees us from. We fear the condemnation from one another. We fear the judgment from one another. And I think we find it hard, because of that, to really fully accept the love and forgiveness of God.

We get caught up in Guilt and Fear.

These are not new words… but they are words we need to hear again, and again, and again.

Jesus calls us from guilt to grace.

Jesus calls us from fear to faith.

We would have died at Mount Sinai. But we can walk up the hill of Cavalry. We would have burned to ashes at the shadow of God’s holy presence. But we are made righteous and ready for the presence of God by the new mediator. Jesus.

We stand before the throne of God. Before Judgment. We are going to die.

But we have this strong and perfect plea. Our great high-priest, whose name is love, He lived and died for me.

And because this sinless Savior died.

And he lives… and He pleads for me.