Continuing my Torah studies, I come to Deuteronomy 5: 24 (the corresponding Complete Jewish Bible’s verse is 21). The CJB reads as follows:
and said, ‘Here, ADONAI our God has shown us his glory and his greatness! We have heard his voice coming from the fire, and we have seen today that God does speak with human beings, and they stay alive. (Deu 5:21 CJB) (cf. Deu 5:5 I stood between the LORD and you at that time, to shew you the word of the LORD: for ye were afraid by reason of the fire, and went not up into the mount;)
Moshe reiterated to the nation that the apparent longstanding myth that Yehovah never communicates with His creation unless He meant them harm or if He were to communicate with His creation by happenstance it would not occur without dire consequences, was indeed a big ole lie. What a trick of hasatan upon the human race that he would cajole men to distance themselves even further from their Creator out of fear that they would die if they had a personal interaction with Him.
I guess there is a 180-degree difference today whereby humans are flippant about communicating with the Creator. We see numerous examples of evangelists who make a spectacle out of communicating with the Almighty and then attempting to tap into the supernatural through self-serving works of healing, slaying folks in the spirit and speaking in ecstatic tongues. It’s as if hasatan has flipped the whole thing on its head where once humans feared God to death and avoided interacting with HIm but today we treat God as if He is like one of us. I remember attending a United Church of God service one Sabbath and one of the senior men in the congregation got up to pray and the first words out of His mouth was: “hello God.” Now, I’m not trying to be hypersensitive on this issue, but this to me was just another example of man’s ubber-familiarity with the Almighty. Churchianity has convinced us that we need to have a “personal relationship with the Lord” and we take that inference to the greatest limits.
This passage reminds us (a recurring theme throughout Torah–that of being reminded) that indeed Yehovah does communicate with His creation. The reality of the matter is that Yehovah has and continues to communicate with His creation in a number of ways. Sadly, He doesn’t always choose to do so via a burning mountain event as He did at Horeb. But He is known to communicate to His creation via dreams and visions, nature, natural events, prophets, His Word, His Ruach Kodesh, day-to-day happenstances and even direct utterances to our spirit. Have you ever heard the voice of the Almighty speak to you directly on a particular issue, clear as if it was another human being speaking to you? I’ve had such things happen to me. Sometimes I’ve heard the utterances and other times I’ve not. I think the Spirit of the Most High speaks to all of His chosen ones. Yet, obviously, most of us don’t hear Him when He speaks. The cares of life drown out the oft-times wee small voice of the Ruach Kodesh and we miss tremendous opportunities to hear what the Lord has to say to us. Sometimes we simply don’t believe that Yehovah cares enough about our individual situations to intervene and provide us instruction and direction. Thus, we falter along in this life, often heading the wrong way and sometimes even towards destruction. I’ve had this happen to me a million-times over. I tune Father out and effectively take life (that is matters) into my own hands. I’ll even admit that there have been times when I really didn’t want Yehovah’s input, out of fear that He would instruct or direct me to do something that I really didn’t want to do. In those cases, when we actually fear the direct intervention of the Almighty in our lives, we become no better than the Children of Israel at Horeb, fearing the presence of the Almighty; essentially rejecting His direct influence in our lives. It was that event–that one-time key event–that set the tone for how the Father would interact with His creation from that day forward. No longer would He manifest Himself to His people in such greatness and glory. He would henceforth interact with His people via other, less overt means. How sad! How disappointing! Oh what I wouldn’t give to have been at Horeb that day. I would venture to guess that many of you feel the same way. To experience and see Father’s unmatchable wonders and hear His voice speak directly to me His Torah would have been the capstone to my life.
I guess it goes without saying that the Children of Promise in general did not have a full understanding of who they were and their ultimate potential through Yehovah. If one were to maintain a mindset that there’s this God out there doing a whole-bunch of things that are fantastical and at times scary, and I’m this poor, unwitting soul who is being somewhat forced and thrust into these events that are completely beyond one’s control, then a Horeb event might be just a little overwhelming. But when one realizes just who they are (or who they can be) in the Lord and that Yehovah so desperately wants to have a relationship with His creation, then a Horeb event would be very much desired and invited. I long for a Horeb event in my life. I long each day to hear the voice of Yehovah speak to me in whatever form or manner He chooses for me at the time. I want to communicate with Him beyond prayer and through His Word. I want to experience His glory in every aspect of my being. How about you? Well, it’s not out of the question. I believe if we seek Him constantly with a pure and righteous heart, abandoning all other gods (be they real idols or idols that are the cares of this life) for Him and Him alone, He will manifest Himself to us in great glory. There is coming a day though, when we will see His immense glory. It will come when Yeshua, cracks the sky and gathers His chosen from the 4-corners of the earth, and assembles us together with Him on the sea of fire and glass. Then, we will begin to witness forever more, the glory of Yehovah and reclaim that opportunity that was once offered to the Children of Promise at Horeb. Come even now Lord Yeshua…Come now! Be blessed Saints.