Exodus 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.
Exodus 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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