“All the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the ram’s horn, and the mountain surrounded by smoke. When the people saw it they trembled and stood at a distance. ‘You speak to us, and we will listen,’ they said to Moses, ‘but don’t let God speak to us, or we will die.’ Moses responded to the people, ‘Don’t be afraid, for God has come to test you, so that you will fear him and will not sin.’ And the people remained standing at a distance as Moses approached the total darkness where God was.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

When I was little, my parents took me on a thrill ride at an amusement park. It terrified me. A lot. As a result, it was a full decade before I rode another thrill ride of any kind. That first experience left me chastened. I responded by backing away and not getting near them. When Israel experienced the power and presence of God in the wild storm theophany there at Mount Sinai out of which God delivered the Ten Commandments, they were terrified. They reacted about like I did with roller coasters. Let’s talk through their response here and Moses’ efforts to encourage them.

You really can’t blame the people for reacting like this. This was the most God had yet pulled back the curtain on His terrifying holiness and power for them. They had seen Him do some pretty wild stuff on their behalf already, but they hadn’t really seen Him just yet. This was the fullest glimpse they had received. They responded about like the Cowardly Lion did to the Wizard the first time Dorothy’s quartet appeared before him. He ran out of the room and jumped through the first window he could find.

From out of this fear they spoke to Moses. Listen Moses, we’ll do whatever this God says. He clearly has enough power that we don’t want to cross Him. But from now on, you do all the talking. If this God talks to us, there’s a chance we’re all going to drop dead. That may be because of fear, or it may be because His power is just so overwhelming that He accidentally uses too much of it, but either way, we’re not going to risk it. You seem to be able to talk to Him without much of an issue, so you do the translating for us.

They were used to powerful people having a “voice,” that is someone who did the speaking for them. We’ve talked before about the fact that Pharaoh would have had this. God’s sending Aaron to go with Moses and to act as his voice gave Moses quite a lot of credibility in the eyes of the Egyptians. But that was nothing like this. Anyone on Earth behaving that way was simply performing a show of hubris. Compared with this God, they didn’t have any power. Compared with this God, no one and nothing on Earth was worthy of their fear.

This kind of thinking on the people’s part was actually part of the point here. That’s what Moses tries to explain to them in order to reassure them. Moses told the people to not be afraid which is hilarious to a certain extent. This was the most terrifying thing any of the people had ever seen. This was one of the most terrifying things anyone in the world had ever seen. Telling the people to not be afraid was a little like telling a fish to not get wet. Furthermore, he tells them not to be afraid in light of the fact that God had put on this display so that they would fear Him. Huh? If God was trying to make them fear Him, then why should they not be afraid? Why would Moses say something like that?

The answer is in the context. Moses didn’t simply tell them to not be afraid generally. They were not to be afraid to speak to God. They were not to be afraid to draw near to God. God was showing up in power like this so that they understood His power and might and would take Him seriously. When people write a resume today, one of the things they’ll do is to put down all of the most impressive things they’ve ever done. You want to leave your potential employer thinking, “Wow, this candidate is really impressive. He’s heads and tails above everybody else.” That being said, you don’t want to make yourself seem so overqualified that they don’t give you any consideration because of that.

God wanted the people to get a better sense of just who He was and of just how much authority He had so that they would be willing to take Him seriously. He wanted them thinking, “Wow, this God is really impressive. He’s heads and tails about everybody else. I had better do what He says.” That’s the fear Moses was talking about at the end. The people didn’t need to be mortally terrified of God like they expressed to Moses. If God wanted to kill them, He would have. He had already long since established that He was for them, not against them. That’s why He had brought them out of Egypt and parted the Red Sea and destroyed the Egyptian army and provided them water and manna and destroyed the Amalekite army and so on and so forth. God wanted them to take Him seriously, to be willing to obey Him. They had seen a glimpse of His power. He wanted them to know there was a whole lot more where they came from.

This whole display was a kind of test. If they obeyed Him, they passed. That’s what Moses was getting at when he told them God wanted the people to fear Him and not sin. But before you think it was awfully coercive of God to flex before the people like this in order to get them to obey, remember what came first. It is so easy to forget that God put relationship first, not power. He always puts relationship above power. Oh, He’s willing to display power when He needs to, but relationship is what He wants more. The same thing is true for us. That’s why Jesus came and lived and died and rose again. He made the way for us to enter into a relationship with God. Through Jesus God demonstrated just how much He wants a relationship with us. When He comes back to bring all things to an end it will be with power. But relationship came first. Relationship always comes first with God.

The real question for us to consider is how we will respond. Will we respond by taking Him up on His offer of relationship, or will we respond like Israel did here? In spite of Moses’ reassurance, the people wouldn’t go to God. They “remained standing at a distance as Moses approached the total darkness where God was.” They didn’t trust Moses or God more than what their eyes could see and their brains were telling them. This offers us some pretty significant foreshadowing in terms of how the people are going to respond to God commands in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead of them. May we not make the same mistake they did of remaining at a distance. Let us actually go to Jesus and do what He says because of our love for Him and trust in Him. That’s where life will always be found.