As Moses came down the mountain, he saw the idolatry and immorality the people had fallen into, and he smashed the 2 tablets of the law. He broke the physical tablets because the people had broken them spiritually. It was a simple illustration of what had already been revealed in the hearts of the people. But God told Moses to cut 2 more tablets and come back up the mountain. Moses was about to receive another revelation from the Lord, as God graciously re-established the covenant that His people had deliberately broken through the golden-calf apostasy.<\/p>\n
The tablets of God’s law had not even made it down the mountain before the people had broken them. But that should not surprise us because that is the purpose of the law of God. It is designed to show us exactly what is in our black hearts. Although, “I\u2019m OK, you’re OK,” is a popular saying, the truth is we are not OK! And because we are not OK, we are constantly breaking the spirit of God’s law. In the New Testament the Apostle Paul said the law serves as a teacher to drive us to grace: “Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith” (Gal. 3:24).<\/p>\n
Paul used an interesting Greek word for tutor. In that culture the tutor was not the child’s teacher precisely, but the slave who cared for his master’s children. From the time the children were around the age of 6 or 7 until they reached puberty, the trusted slave would escort the child to school, making sure the child was learning his lessons. Once the child grew up, he was no longer required to obey this slave. But until then, this slave was personally responsible for the child’s safety, protecting him from any bad company. This is a beautiful picture of how the law (the slave) is an attendant to lead us to Jesus. It is the finger pointing us to Jesus, “that we might be justified by faith.” And when we receive Jesus, we receive His permanent, indwelling Spirit. As the Apostle Paul said, “The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you” (Rom. 8:11, NLT).<\/p>\n
“LORD, lead us this day in Your ways. Keep our feet on Your path for our lives we pray.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n =============================================================<\/p>\n\n\n\n Exodus 34 KJV<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1<\/sup>\u00a0And the\u00a0LORD\u00a0said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon\u00a0these\u00a0<\/em>tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest.\u00a02<\/sup>\u00a0And 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.\u00a03<\/sup>\u00a0And 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<\/sup> 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\u00a0LORD\u00a0had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone. 5<\/sup>\u00a0And the\u00a0LORD\u00a0descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the\u00a0LORD.\u00a06<\/sup>\u00a0And the\u00a0LORD\u00a0passed by before him, and proclaimed, The\u00a0LORD, The\u00a0LORD\u00a0God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,\u00a07<\/sup>\u00a0Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear\u00a0the guilty;\u00a0<\/em>visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children\u2019s children, unto the third and to the fourth\u00a0generation\u00a0<\/em>.\u00a08<\/sup>\u00a0And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped.\u00a09<\/sup>\u00a0And he said, If now I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us; for it\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>a stiffnecked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance. 10<\/sup>\u00a0And he said, Behold, I make a covenant: before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation: and all the people among which thou\u00a0art\u00a0<\/em>shall see the work of the\u00a0LORD: for it\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>a terrible thing that I will do with thee.\u00a011<\/sup>\u00a0Observe thou that which I command thee this day: behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.\u00a012<\/sup>\u00a0Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee:\u00a013<\/sup>\u00a0But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:\u00a0\u00a014<\/sup>\u00a0For thou shalt worship no other god: for the\u00a0LORD, whose name\u00a0is<\/em>Jealous,\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>a jealous God:\u00a015<\/sup>\u00a0Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and\u00a0one\u00a0<\/em>call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice;\u00a016<\/sup>\u00a0And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods.\u00a017<\/sup>Thou shalt make thee no molten gods. 18<\/sup>\u00a0The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, in the time of the month Abib: for in the month Abib thou camest out from Egypt.\u00a019<\/sup>\u00a0All that openeth the matrix\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>mine; and every firstling among thy cattle,\u00a0whether\u00a0<\/em>ox or sheep,\u00a0that is male<\/em>. 20<\/sup>\u00a0But the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou redeem\u00a0him\u00a0<\/em>not, then shalt thou break his neck. All the firstborn of thy sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall appear before me empty.\u00a0 21<\/sup>\u00a0Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest. 22<\/sup> And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year\u2019s end.\u00a023<\/sup> Thrice in the year shall all your men children appear before the Lord\u00a0GOD, the God of Israel.\u00a024<\/sup>\u00a0For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the\u00a0LORD\u00a0thy God thrice in the year.\u00a025<\/sup>\u00a0Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning.\u00a026<\/sup>\u00a0The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the\u00a0LORD\u00a0thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother\u2019s milk.\u00a027<\/sup>\u00a0And the\u00a0LORD\u00a0said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. 28<\/sup>\u00a0And he was there with the\u00a0LORD\u00a0forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments. 29<\/sup>\u00a0And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses\u2019 hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him.\u00a030<\/sup>\u00a0And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him.\u00a031<\/sup>And Moses called unto them; and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned unto him: and Moses talked with them.\u00a032<\/sup>\u00a0And afterward all the children of Israel came nigh: and he gave them in commandment all that the\u00a0LORD\u00a0had spoken with him in mount Sinai.\u00a033<\/sup>\u00a0And\u00a0till\u00a0<\/em>Moses had done speaking with them, he put a vail on his face.\u00a034<\/sup>\u00a0But when Moses went in before the\u00a0LORD\u00a0to speak with him, he took the vail off, until he came out. And he came out, and spake unto the children of Israel\u00a0that\u00a0<\/em>which he was commanded.\u00a035<\/sup>\u00a0And the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses\u2019 face shone: and Moses put the vail upon his face again, until he went in to speak with him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As Moses came down the mountain, he saw the idolatry and immorality the people had fallen into, and he smashed the 2 tablets of the law. He broke the physical tablets because the people had broken them spiritually. It was a simple illustration of what had already been revealed in the hearts of the people. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12604"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12604"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15916,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12604\/revisions\/15916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}