Right Reverence

Exodus 20:18-21
(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
(19) and said to Moses, "You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die."
(20) Moses said to the people, "Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin."
(21) The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.

God displayed a tiny fraction of His glory to the people so that they would revere Him and not sin. Of course, this worked for a time and they pretty quickly fell away while in the wilderness.

It's easy to skip over much of the Old Testament because we think that it doesn't apply to us. But how can we understand the book of Hebrews unless we also have the book of Leviticus? (more on that later in the month) How can we truly appreciate what Christ did for us unless we have a sense of the majesty and holiness of God?

We want a tame God that we can control. We don't want one that appears to us as a smoky hurricane. We want the sweet baby Jesus, not the Revelation 19 Jesus. However, as C.S. Lewis put so well, He's not exactly a tame lion, is he?

Let us properly revere God. However, unlike the Israelites on the mountain, let us also approach Him thanks to the fact that Jesus tore down the veil of the temple, amen?