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Law of God
111
God is come to prove you, and that His fear may be before your
faces, that ye sin not.
“And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the
thick darkness where God was. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, Ye have seen that
I have talked with you from heaven.” The majestic presence of
God at Sinai, and the commotions in the earth occasioned by His
presence, the fearful thunderings and lightnings which accompanied
this visitation of God, so impressed the minds of the people with
fear and reverence to His sacred majesty that they instinctively drew
back from the awful presence of God, lest they should not be able to
endure His terrible glory.
The Peril of Idolatry
Again, God would guard the children of Israel from idolatry.
He said unto them, “Ye shall not make with Me gods of silver,
neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold.” They were in danger
of imitating the example of the Egyptians, and making to themselves
images to represent God.
The Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I send an Angel before thee,
to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have
prepared. Beware of Him, and obey His voice, provoke Him not; for
He will not pardon your transgressions: for My name is in Him. But
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if thou shalt indeed obey His voice, and do all that I speak; then I
will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine
adversaries; for Mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee
in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the
Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will cut them off.”
The angel who went before Israel was the Lord Jesus Christ. “Thou
shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their
works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down
their images. And ye shall serve the Lord your God, and He shall
bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from
the midst of thee.”
Exodus 23:24, 25
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God would have His people understand that He alone should
be the object of their worship; and when they should overcome the
idolatrous nations around them, they should not preserve any of the