34:1 ¶ And the LORD said unto Moses, Hew thee two
tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables
the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest.2 And be ready in
the morning, and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present thyself
there to me in the top of the mount. 3
And no man shall come up with thee, neither let any man be seen
throughout all the mount; neither let the flocks nor herds feed before that
mount. 4 And he hewed two tables of
stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up
unto mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand the two
tables of stone.
God will repeat the writing of the commandments on two tables of
stone. Moses was to come up early and alone to the summit of Mount Sinai to
receive those tables of stone. Everyone else was to stay away from the base of
the mountain and no one was to come on the mountain except Moses. Moses is told
to be ready in the morning. There is
something to be considered about the morning. Will the church be called out, translated in Biblical terms or raptured in popular parlance, in the
morning? Do a word search on the morning. Here are two prominent examples.
Psalm 30:5 For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a
night, but joy cometh in the morning.
Psalm 130:6 My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning:
I say, more than they that
watch for the morning.
34:5 ¶ And the LORD descended in
the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD.
6 And the LORD passed by before him, and
proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and
abundant in goodness and truth, 7
Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and
sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity
of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s
children, unto the third and to the fourth generation. 8 And Moses made haste, and bowed his head
toward the earth, and worshipped. 9 And
he said, If now I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray
thee, go among us; for it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our
iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance.
Jehovah God descends in a cloud and stands with Moses on Mount
Sinai. He declares His intentions, His attributes, including His mercy. What He
declares for the Israelites in this circumstance is important for us to
realize. Verse 7 is a statement of reality in a world under judgment, not a
command for the Hebrews to perform. Note the following;
Micah 7:18 Who is
a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression
of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he
delighteth in mercy.
Deuteronomy 24:16 The fathers shall not be put to death for the
children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man
shall be put to death for his own sin.
There have been heathen cultures in history that punished entire
clans for the crimes of one person and executed entire families for the sins of
one of their members. An analysis of those cultures in history is not necessary
here but it is not what God had in mind.
But in our reality, in a world under judgment, the sins committed
by one generation have a ripple effect on future generations. It became
fashionable, for instance, in 1960s America for people to cohabit without any
commitment for life, making something that God had given us, sexual union with
a mate, something no more significant than relieving oneself by the side of the
road. Then, in the next generation there was a great increase in illegitimacy,
abandoned children, and a demand for legal abortions which became a
constitutional right in 1973 with Roe versus Wade. This was compounded in the
next generation. By the 1990s there were millions of children living in poverty
in single parent homes, often but not always due to choices made casually
without consideration for future generations, and up to now, since 1973, more
than 50 million babies have been executed before they could see the light of
day. Truly, iniquity is visited on the third and fourth generations. Society is
less stable than it could be and people are far more dependent upon government
programs for help than they would have been if they had not bathed in this
iniquity. Men, women, and children suffer untold psychological problems and are
consigned to economic struggle because of these choices, in desperate need of
the mind to appeal to God’s mercy, acknowledging Him as their sovereign and
Lord in obedience. Of course, the trouble today is that we do not repent of sin
so much as we try to justify it or make it not such a big deal further making
the consequences for the guilty and the innocent worse.
Every time a so-called conservative Christian commits fornication
with a live-in partner or even just a “significant other” with whom they have
not made a life-long commitment they run the risk of bringing damage on the
next few generations. It is simply the way life is, the lasting consequence of
sin. Many a Christian has started a family in iniquity and suffered horribly
because although God would forgive their sin they do not even seek repentance
in their heart for it. You cannot start a family on the wrong note, refuse to
repent in your heart of your sin against God and innocent children, and expect
everything to turn out well.
Who are you to declare your sin as no big deal and demand that God
forgive you and bless you without repentance? I wonder how many Christian men
have married Christian women to “make it right” and yet never repented of the
sin they were making it right for and yet expected God to remove any issues
from their path to a happy, fulfilled future with their family.
Here in verse 8 is a physical act of worship.
Genesis 42:6 And
Joseph was the governor over the land, and he it was that sold to all the
people of the land: and Joseph’s brethren came, and bowed down themselves
before him with their faces to the earth.
Bowing oneself to the
earth is one of the postures of reverence and worship.
Sometimes people bow
their head to worship God.
Genesis 24:26 And the
man bowed down his head, and worshipped the LORD.
Sometimes to the
earth.
Genesis 24:52 And it
came to pass, that, when Abraham’s servant heard their words, he worshipped the
LORD, bowing himself to the earth.
Even falling down and
grabbing the feet of the person worshipped.
Matthew 28:9 And as
they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And
they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him.
Sometimes they
kneeled.
Psalm 95:6 O come,
let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker.
So, it is that there
are different postures of acknowledging someone as superior. We Americans are
taught to bow to no one as superior so we have a hard time acknowledging God’s
power over our lives in a real, tangible way. Americans lack the awe for
anything other than something like a fireworks display or a huge bomb going
off. Our shallowness of culture does get in the way of our understanding of who
God is and of His power over our lives. The weakness of other cultures was that
for centuries they acknowledged a king, tsar, or emperor as being God’s agent
on earth and were in fear and awe of him but still not seeing, because of the
propaganda their government controlled them with, that it was God who
controlled every heartbeat and breath and God, not their king, who could save
or destroy in an instant. Only God is worthy of our awe and reverence, our
worship.
Psalm 33:8 Let all
the earth fear the LORD: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of
him.
Hebrews 12:28
Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have
grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:
The brothers in
Genesis 42:6 came to the Egyptian official, mightiest in the land under the
Pharaoh himself, their brother Joseph whom they did not recognize, to plead for
food to buy. They were showing their inferior position and his power over their
lives. This is a beautiful image of how we should come to Christ. Let Him lift
us up.
James 4:10 Humble
yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
1Peter 5:6 Humble
yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due
time: 7 Casting all your care upon him;
for he careth for you.
Moses worships the
Lord and pleads for his people, acting as a mediator between God and man as a
type of Christ.
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