26th September 2025

26th September 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Exodus 19:1-25 focus v18-25)


Message (Alan Burke)


As I write this devotion it’s wet outside again and I’ve the stove in the study lit. Many of our homes have a fire place although with central heating and electric hobs the need of fire is no more. But there is something comforting about a fire, it’s warm, homely although the imagery that is given to us here is not warm and homely but awesome and terrifying. At this stage Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the LORD had descended on it in fire and we are told that the smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln. The imagery that is used here is breathtaking, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a traditional charcoal burn, some years ago I witnessed one and the harvested wood is encased straw and soil before being lit. You cover it with soil because too much oxygen would just burn the wood to ash so you want to starve the oxygen, giving enough so that the wood is turned to charcoal. That day I saw the charcoal burn the smoke was escaping through the soil, with more soil put on it to prevent more air getting in but in effect the whole mound was covered with a thick blanket of smoke that was rising up into the sky. Think of a mountain bigger than Slieve Donard billowing with smoke, pouring out of it and trembling greatly. The presence of the LORD God is awe inspiring, awesome and terrifying. The effect on the people is told to us in chapter 20:18 Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off. 


We have made the LORD God in our image, forgetting just how omnipotent he is.Then as Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him. The LORD had already warned the people about not going up the mountain and he reiterates to Moses twice in these verses that they are not to try to force their way through to see the LORD, how even the priests those who were normally seen as consecrated, set apart were also to consecrate themselves. The reason is the Holiness of the LORD our God. We come before the LORD who is Holy, Holy, Holy, he must be worshiped according to his revealed way, with reverence and awe according to how he reveals. For as Paul in Hebrews 12 reminds us our “God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:28, 29). 


The LORD is holy, his ways are not our ways, he meets his people but not according to the imaginations of men but according to his revealed will. Because of our sin we cannot approach him as we may desire, we need a mediator. Moses meditated between the LORD God and the people, we need a mediator to approach the LORD God because of his holiness, Jesus Christ is the one ultimate mediator. Moses’ action foreshadowed how Jesus would mediate between God and man, for he himself was true God and true man, the one who speaks the word of God to us for he is the word of God incarnate. For while long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, who acts as our mediator between God and sinful man (Heb 1:1-2).


After the people had prepared themselves to meet the LORD then he would give them his commandments, he would tell them how they were to live as his people. He redeems and then it leads to a response of the entirety of our lives. The LORD would give his moral law then then the outworking of that in how they were to live not only as his people but the civil law to live as a nation and the ceremonial law for how they were to worship. While we have been freed from the civil and ceremonial law the moral law that he gives is binding on all people throughout the ages. First the LORD redeems us from our slavery to sin and then he teaches us how to live in response to the grace we have received. He is gracious and compassionate towards us but let us not forget who we come before, he is the LORD God almighty. The only way that any of us can come before him is through the blood of Jesus (1 Cor 6:11), for it is through his blood that we have been washed, consecrated, while we cannot earn salvation, but we are made pure through what Jesus has done, all through his work, and as a result one day we will see God as he is (1 Jn 3:1-3).


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q84 What doth every sin deserve?
A. Every sin deserveth God’s wrath and curse, both in this life, and that which is to come.
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