Chapter XVIII: Appendix: 757 (13)

How often, in our own day, is the love of pleasure disguised by a “form of godliness”! A religion that permits men, while observing the rites of worship, to devote themselves to selfish or sensual gratification, is as pleasing to the multitudes now as in the days of Israel. And there are still pliant Aarons, who, while holding positions of authority in the church, will yield to the desires of the unconsecrated, and thus encourage them in sin.

Only a few days had passed since the Hebrews had made a solemn covenant with God to obey his voice. They had stood trembling with terror before the mount, listening to the words of the Lord, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” The glory of God still hovered above Sinai in the sight of the congregation; but they turned away, and asked for other gods. “They made a calf in Horeb, and worshiped the molten image. Thus they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox.”[482] How could greater ingratitude have been shown, or more daring insult offered, to Him who had revealed himself to them as a tender father and an all-powerful king!

Moses in the mount was warned of the apostasy in the camp, and was directed to return without delay. “Go, get thee down,” were the words of God; “thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made them a molten calf, and have worshiped it.” God might have checked the movement at the outset; but he suffered it to come to this height, that he might teach all a lesson in his punishment of treason and apostasy.

God’s covenant with his people had been disannulled, and he declared to Moses, “Let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them; and I will make of thee a great nation.” The people of Israel, especially the mixed multitude, would be constantly disposed to rebel against God. They would also murmur against their leader, and would grieve him by their unbelief and stubbornness, and it would be a laborious and soul-trying work to lead them through to the promised land. Their sins had already forfeited the favor of God, and justice called for their destruction. The Lord therefore proposed to destroy them, and make of Moses a mighty nation.

“Let me alone, that I may consume them,” were the words of God. If God had purposed to destroy Israel, who could plead for them? How few but would have left the sinners to their fate! How few but would have gladly exchanged a lot of toil and burden and sacrifice, repaid with ingratitude and murmuring, for a position of ease and honor, when it was God himself that offered the release.

But Moses discerned ground for hope where there appeared only discouragement and wrath. The words of God, “Let me alone,” he understood not to forbid but to encourage intercession, implying that nothing but the prayers of Moses could save Israel, but that if thus entreated, God would spare his people. He “besought the Lord his God, and said, Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand?”

God had signified that he disowned his people. He had spoken of them to Moses as “_thy_ people, which _thou_ broughtest out of Egypt.” But Moses humbly disclaimed the leadership of Israel. They were not his, but God’s,—“_thy_ people, which _thou_ hast brought forth ... with great power, and with a mighty hand. Wherefore,” he urged, “should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth?”

During the few months since Israel left Egypt, the report of their wonderful deliverance had spread to all the surrounding nations. Fear and terrible foreboding rested upon the heathen. All were watching to see what the God of Israel would do for his people. Should they now be destroyed, their enemies would triumph, and God would be dishonored. The Egyptians would claim that their accusations were true,—instead of leading his people into the wilderness to sacrifice, he had caused them to be sacrificed. They would not consider the sins of Israel; the destruction of the people whom he had so signally honored, would bring reproach upon his name. How great the responsibility resting upon those whom God has highly honored, to make his name a praise in the earth! With what care should they guard against committing sin, to call down his judgments, and cause his name to be reproached by the ungodly!

As Moses interceded for Israel, his timidity was lost in his deep interest and love for those for whom he had, in the hands of God, been the means of doing so much. The Lord listened to his pleadings, and granted his unselfish prayer. God had proved his servant; he had tested his faithfulness, and his love for that erring, ungrateful people, and nobly had Moses endured the trial. His interest in Israel sprung from no selfish motive. The prosperity of God’s chosen people was dearer to him than personal honor, dearer than the privilege of becoming the father of a mighty nation. God was pleased with his faithfulness, his simplicity of heart, and his integrity, and he committed to him, as a faithful shepherd, the great charge of leading Israel to the promised land.

As Moses and Joshua came down from the mount, the former bearing the “tables of the testimony,” they heard the shouts and outcries of the excited multitude, evidently in a state of wild uproar. To Joshua the Soldier, the first thought was of an attack from their enemies. “There is a noise of war in the camp,” he said. But Moses judged more truly the nature of the commotion. The sound was not that of combat, but of revelry. “It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome; but the noise of them that sing do I hear.”

As they drew near the encampment, they beheld the people shouting and dancing around their idol. It was a scene of heathen riot, an imitation of the idolatrous feasts of Egypt; but how unlike the solemn and reverent worship of God! Moses was overwhelmed. He had just come from the presence of God’s glory, and though he had been warned of what was taking place, he was unprepared for that dreadful exhibition of the degradation of Israel. His anger was hot. To show his abhorrence of their crime, he threw down the tables of stone, and they were broken in the sight of all the people, thus signifying that as they had broken their covenant with God, so God had broken his covenant with them.

Entering the camp, Moses passed through the crowds of revelers, and seizing upon the idol, cast it into the fire. He afterward ground it to powder, and having strewed it upon the stream that descended from the mount, he made the people drink of it. Thus was shown the utter worthlessness of the god which they had been worshiping.

The great leader summoned his guilty brother, and sternly demanded, “What did this people unto thee, that thou hast brought so great a sin upon them?” Aaron endeavored to shield himself by relating the clamors of the people; that if he had not complied with their wishes, he would have been put to death. “Let not the anger of my lord wax hot,” he said; “thou knowest the people, that they are set on mischief. For they said unto me, Make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me; then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.” He would lead Moses to believe that a miracle had been wrought,—that the gold had been cast into the fire, and by supernatural power changed to a calf. But his excuses and prevarications were of no avail. He was justly dealt with as the chief offender.

The fact that Aaron had been blessed and honored so far above the people was what made his sin so heinous. It was Aaron “the saint of the Lord,”[483] that had made the idol and announced the feast. It was he who had been appointed as spokesman for Moses, and concerning whom God himself had testified, “I know that he can speak well,”[484] that had failed to check the idolaters in their heaven-daring purpose. He by whom God had wrought in bringing judgments both upon the Egyptians and upon their gods, had heard unmoved the proclamation before the molten image, “These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” It was he who had been with Moses on the mount, and had there beheld the glory of the Lord, who had seen that in the manifestation of that glory there was nothing of which an image could be made,—it was he who had changed that glory into the similitude of an ox. He to whom God had committed the government of the people in the absence of Moses, was found sanctioning their rebellion. “The Lord was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him.”[485] But in answer to the earnest intercession of Moses, his life was spared; and in penitence and humiliation for his great sin, he was restored to the favor of God.

If Aaron had had courage to stand for the right, irrespective of consequences, he could have prevented that apostasy. If he had unswervingly maintained his own allegiance to God, if he had cited the people to the perils of Sinai, and had reminded them of their solemn covenant with God to obey his law, the evil would have been checked. But his compliance with the desires of the people, and the calm assurance with which he proceeded to carry out their plans, emboldened them to go to greater lengths in sin than had before entered their minds.

When Moses, on returning to the camp, confronted the rebels, his severe rebukes and the indignation he displayed in breaking the sacred tables of the law, were contrasted by the people with his brother’s pleasant speech and dignified demeanor, and their sympathies were with Aaron. To justify himself, Aaron endeavored to make the people responsible for his weakness in yielding to their demand; but notwithstanding this, they were filled with admiration of his gentleness and patience. But God seeth not as man sees. Aaron’s yielding spirit and his desire to please, had blinded his eyes to the enormity of the crime he was sanctioning. His course in giving his influence to sin in Israel, cost the life of thousands. In what contrast with this was the course of Moses, who, while faithfully executing God’s judgments, showed that the welfare of Israel was dearer to him than prosperity or honor or life.

Of all the sins that God will punish, none are more grievous in his sight than those that encourage others to do evil. God would have his servants prove their loyalty by faithfully rebuking transgression, however painful the act may be. Those who are honored with a divine commission, are not to be weak, pliant time-servers. They are not to aim at self-exaltation, or to shun disagreeable duties, but to perform God’s work with unswerving fidelity.

Though God had granted the prayer of Moses in sparing Israel from destruction, their apostasy was to be signally punished. The lawlessness and insubordination into which Aaron had permitted them to fall, if not speedily crushed, would run riot in wickedness, and would involve the nation in irretrievable ruin. By terrible severity the evil must be put away. Standing in the gate of the camp, Moses called to the people, “Who is on the Lord’s side? let him come unto me.” Those who had not joined in the apostasy were to take their position at the right of Moses; those who were guilty but repentant, at the left. The command was obeyed. It was found that the tribe of Levi had taken no part in the idolatrous worship. From among other tribes there were great numbers who, although they had sinned, now signified their repentance. But a large company, mostly of the mixed multitude that instigated the making of the calf, stubbornly persisted in their rebellion. In the name of “the Lord God of Israel,” Moses now commanded those upon his right hand, who had kept themselves clear of idolatry, to gird on their swords, and slay all who persisted in rebellion. “And there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.” Without regard to position, kindred, or friendship, the ringleaders in wickedness were cut off; but all who repented and humbled themselves were spared.

Those who performed this terrible work of judgment were acting by divine authority, executing the sentence of the King of heaven. Men are to beware how they, in their human blindness, judge and condemn their fellow-men; but when God commands them to execute his sentence upon iniquity, he is to be obeyed. Those who performed this painful act, thus manifested their abhorrence of rebellion and idolatry, and consecrated themselves more fully to the service of the true God. The Lord honored their faithfulness by bestowing special distinction upon the tribe of Levi.

The Israelites had been guilty of treason, and that against a King who had loaded them with benefits, and whose authority they had voluntarily pledged themselves to obey. That the divine government might be maintained justice must be visited upon the traitors. Yet even here God’s mercy was displayed. While he maintained his law, he granted freedom of choice, and opportunity for repentance to all. Only those were cut off who persisted in rebellion.

It was necessary that this sin should be punished, as a testimony to surrounding nations of God’s displeasure against idolatry. By executing justice upon the guilty, Moses, as God’s instrument, must leave on record a solemn and public protest against their crime. As the Israelites should hereafter condemn the idolatry of the neighboring tribes, their enemies would throw back upon them the charge that the people who claimed Jehovah as their God had made a calf and worshiped it in Horeb. Then though compelled to acknowledge the disgraceful truth, Israel could point to the terrible fate of the transgressors, as evidence that their sin had not been sanctioned or excused.

Love no less than justice demanded that for this sin, judgment should be inflicted. God is the guardian as well as the sovereign of his people. He cuts off those who are determined upon rebellion, that they may not lead others to ruin. In sparing the life of Cain, God had demonstrated to the universe what would be the result of permitting sin to go unpunished. The influence exerted upon his descendants by his life and teaching led to the state of corruption that demanded the destruction of the whole world by a flood. The history of the antediluvians testifies that long life is not a blessing to the sinner; God’s great forbearance did not repress their wickedness. The longer men lived, the more corrupt they became.

So with the apostasy at Sinai. Unless punishment had been speedily visited upon transgression, the same results would again have been seen. The earth would have become as corrupt as in the days of Noah. Had these transgressors been spared, evils would have followed, greater than resulted from sparing the life of Cain. It was the mercy of God that thousands should suffer, to prevent the necessity of visiting judgments upon millions. In order to save the many, he must punish the few. Furthermore, as the people had cast off their allegiance to God, they had forfeited the divine protection, and, deprived of their defense, the whole nation was exposed to the power of their enemies. Had not the evil been promptly put away, they would soon have fallen a prey to their numerous and powerful foes. It was necessary for the good of Israel, and also as a lesson to all succeeding generations, that crime should be promptly punished. And it was no less a mercy to the sinners themselves that they should be cut short in their evil course. Had their life been spared, the same spirit that led them to rebel against God would have been manifested in hatred and strife among themselves, and they would eventually have destroyed one another. It was in love to the world, in love to Israel, and even to the transgressors, that crime was punished with swift and terrible severity.

As the people were roused to see the enormity of their guilt, terror pervaded the entire encampment. It was feared that every offender was to be cut off. Pitying their distress, Moses promised to plead once more with God for them.

“Ye have sinned a great sin,” he said, “and now I will go up unto the Lord; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin.” He went, and in his confession before God he said, “O, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now if thou wilt forgive their sin—; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.” The answer was, “Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book. Therefore now go, lead the people into the place of which I have spoken unto thee. Behold, mine Angel shall go before thee; nevertheless in the day when I visit I will visit their sin upon them.”

In the prayer of Moses, our minds are directed to the heavenly records in which the names of all men are inscribed, and their deeds, whether good or evil, are faithfully registered. The book of life contains the names of all who have ever entered the service of God. If any of these depart from him, and by stubborn persistence in sin become finally hardened against the influences of his Holy Spirit, their names will in the Judgment be blotted from the book of life, and they themselves will be devoted to destruction. Moses realized how dreadful would be the fate of the sinner; yet if the people of Israel were to be rejected by the Lord, he desired his name to be blotted out with theirs; he could not endure to see the judgments of God fall upon those who had been so graciously delivered. The intercession of Moses in behalf of Israel illustrates the mediation of Christ for sinful men. But the Lord did not permit Moses to bear, as did Christ, the guilt of the transgressor. “Whosoever hath sinned against me,” he said, “him will I blot out of my book.”

In deep sadness the people had buried their dead. Three thousand had fallen by the sword; a plague had soon after broken out in the encampment; and now the message came to them that the divine presence would no longer accompany them in their journeyings. Jehovah had declared, “I will not go up in the midst of thee; for thou art a stiff-necked people: lest I consume thee in the way.” And the command was given, “Put off thy ornaments from thee, that I may know what to do unto thee.”[486] Now there was mourning throughout the encampment. In penitence and humiliation, “the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments by the mount Horeb.”

By the divine direction, the tent that had served as a temporary place of worship was removed “afar off from the camp.” This was still further evidence that God had withdrawn his presence from them. He would reveal himself to Moses, but not to such a people. The rebuke was keenly felt, and to the conscience-smitten multitudes it seemed a foreboding of greater calamity. Had not the Lord separated Moses from the camp that he might utterly destroy them? But they were not left without hope. The tent was pitched without the encampment, but Moses called it “the tabernacle of the congregation.” All who were truly penitent, and desired to return to the Lord, were directed to repair thither to confess their sins and seek his mercy. When they returned to their tents, Moses entered the tabernacle. With agonizing interest, the people watched for some token that his intercessions in their behalf were accepted. If God should condescend to meet with him, they might hope that they were not to be utterly consumed. When the cloudy pillar descended, and stood at the entrance of the tabernacle, the people wept for joy, and they “rose up and worshiped, every man in his tent door.”

Moses knew well the perversity and blindness of those who were placed under his care; he knew the difficulties with which he must contend. But he had learned that in order to prevail with the people, he must have help from God. He pleaded for a clearer revelation of God’s will, and for an assurance of his presence: “See, thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people; and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight. Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight; and consider that this nation is thy people.”

The answer was, “My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.” But Moses was not yet satisfied. There pressed upon his soul a sense of the terrible results should God leave Israel to hardness and impenitence. He could not endure that his interests should be separated from those of his brethren, and he prayed that the favor of God might be restored to his people, and that the token of his presence might continue to direct their journeyings: “If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is it not in that thou goest with us? So shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.”

And the Lord said, “I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken; for thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name.” Still the prophet did not cease pleading. Every prayer had been answered, but he thirsted for greater tokens of God’s favor. He now made a request that no human being had ever made before: “I beseech thee, show me thy glory.”

God did not rebuke his request as presumptuous; but the gracious words were spoken, “I will make all my goodness pass before thee.” The unvailed glory of God, no man in this mortal state can look upon and live; but Moses was assured that he should behold as much of the divine glory as he could endure. Again he was summoned to the mountain summit; then the hand that made the world, that hand that “removeth the mountains, and they know not,”[487] took this creature of the dust, this mighty man of faith, and placed him in a cleft of the rock, while the glory of God and all his goodness passed before him.

This experience—above all else the promise that the divine presence would attend him—was to Moses an assurance of success in the work before him; and he counted it of infinitely greater worth than all the learning of Egypt, or all his attainments as a statesman or a military leader. No earthly power or skill or learning can supply the place of God’s abiding presence.

To the transgressor it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God; but Moses stood alone in the presence of the Eternal One, and he was not afraid; for his soul was in harmony with the will of his Maker. Says the psalmist, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.”[488] But “the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will show them his covenant.”[489]

The Deity proclaimed himself, “The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty.”[490]

“Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped.” Again he entreated that God would pardon the iniquity of his people, and take them for his inheritance. His prayer was granted. The Lord graciously promised to renew his favor to Israel, and in their behalf to do marvels such as had not been done “in all the earth, nor in any nation.”

Forty days and nights, Moses remained in the mount; and during all this time, as at the first, he was miraculously sustained. No man had been permitted to go up with him, nor during the time of his absence were any to approach the mount. At God’s command he had prepared two tables of stone, and had taken them with him to the summit; and again the Lord “wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.”[491]

During that long time spent in communion with God, the face of Moses had reflected the glory of the divine presence; unknown to himself, his face shone with a dazzling light when he descended from the mountain. Such a light illumined the countenance of Stephen when brought before his judges; “and all that sat in the council, looking steadfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel.”[492] Aaron as well as the people shrunk away from Moses, and “they were afraid to come nigh him.” Seeing their confusion and terror, but ignorant of the cause, he urged them to come near. He held out to them the pledge of God’s reconciliation, and assured them of his restored favor. They perceived in his voice nothing but love and entreaty, and at last one ventured to approach him. Too awed to speak, he silently pointed to the countenance of Moses, and then toward heaven. The great leader understood his meaning. In their conscious guilt, feeling themselves still under the divine displeasure, they could not endure the heavenly light, which, had they been obedient to God, would have filled them with joy. There is fear in guilt. The soul that is free from sin will not wish to hide from the light of heaven.

Moses had much to communicate to them; and compassionating their fear, he put a vail upon his face, and continued to do so thereafter whenever he returned to the camp from communion with God.

By this brightness, God designed to impress upon Israel the sacred, exalted character of his law, and the glory of the gospel revealed through Christ. While Moses was in the mount, God presented to him, not only the tables of the law, but also the plan of salvation. He saw that the sacrifice of Christ was prefigured by all the types and symbols of the Jewish age; and it was the heavenly light streaming from Calvary, no less than the glory of the law of God, that shed such a radiance upon the face of Moses. That divine illumination symbolized the glory of the dispensation of which Moses was the visible mediator, a representative of the one true Intercessor.

The glory reflected in the countenance of Moses illustrates the blessings to be received by God’s commandment-keeping people through the mediation of Christ. It testifies that the closer our communion with God, and the clearer our knowledge of his requirements, the more fully shall we be conformed to the divine image, and the more readily do we become partakers of the divine nature.

Moses was a type of Christ. As Israel’s intercessor vailed his countenance, because the people could not endure to look upon its glory, so Christ, the divine Mediator, vailed his divinity with humanity when he came to earth. Had he come clothed with the brightness of heaven, he could not have found access to men in their sinful state. They could not have endured the glory of his presence. Therefore he humbled himself, and was made “in the likeness of sinful flesh,”[493] that he might reach the fallen race, and lift them up.

Footnote 480:

See Exodus 32.

Footnote 481:

See Appendix, Note 7.

Footnote 482:

Ps. 106:19, 20.

Footnote 483:

Ps. 106:16.

Footnote 484:

Ex. 4:14.

Footnote 485:

Deut. 9:20.

Footnote 486:

See Exodus 33.

Footnote 487:

Job 9:5.

Footnote 488:

Ps. 66:18.

Footnote 489:

Ps. 25:14.

Footnote 490:

See Exodus 34.

Footnote 491:

See Appendix, Note 8.

Footnote 492:

Acts 6:15.

Footnote 493:

Rom. 8:3.

SATAN’S ENMITY AGAINST THE LAW—29

The very first effort of Satan to overthrow God’s law,—undertaken among the sinless inhabitants of heaven,—seemed for a time to be crowned with success. A vast number of the angels were seduced; but Satan’s apparent triumph resulted in defeat and loss, separation from God, and banishment from heaven.

When the conflict was renewed upon the earth, Satan again won a seeming advantage. By transgression, man became his captive, and man’s kingdom also was betrayed into the hands of the arch-rebel. Now the way seemed open for Satan to establish an independent kingdom, and to defy the authority of God and his Son. But the plan of salvation made it possible for man again to be brought into harmony with God, and to render obedience to his law, and for both man and the earth to be finally redeemed from the power of the wicked one.

Again Satan was defeated, and again he resorted to deception, in the hope of converting his defeat into a victory. To stir up rebellion in the fallen race, he now represented God as unjust in having permitted man to transgress his law. “Why,” said the artful tempter, “when God knew what would be the result, did he permit man to be placed on trial, to sin, and bring in misery and death?” And the children of Adam, forgetful of the long-suffering mercy that had granted man another trial, regardless of the amazing, the awful sacrifice which his rebellion had cost the King of heaven, gave ear to the tempter, and murmured against the only being who could save them from the destructive power of Satan.

There are thousands to-day echoing the same rebellious complaint against God. They do not see that to deprive man of the freedom of choice would be to rob him of his prerogative as an intelligent being, and make him a mere automaton. It is not God’s purpose to coerce the will. Man was created a free moral agent. Like the inhabitants of all other worlds, he must be subjected to the test of obedience; but he is never brought into such a position that yielding to evil becomes a matter of necessity. No temptation or trial is permitted to come to him which he is unable to resist. God made such ample provision that man need never have been defeated in the conflict with Satan.

As men increased upon the earth, almost the whole world joined the ranks of rebellion. Once more Satan seemed to have gained the victory. But omnipotent power again cut short the working of iniquity, and the earth was cleansed by the flood from its moral pollution.

Says the prophet, “When thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. Let favor be showed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness, ... and will not behold the majesty of Jehovah.”[500] Thus it was after the flood. Released from his judgments, the inhabitants of the earth again rebelled against the Lord. Twice God’s covenant and his statutes had been rejected by the world. Both the people before the flood and the descendants of Noah cast off the divine authority. Then God entered into covenant with Abraham, and took to himself a people to become the depositaries of his law. To seduce and destroy this people, Satan began at once to lay his snares. The children of Jacob were tempted to contract marriages with the heathen and to worship their idols. But Joseph was faithful to God, and his fidelity was a constant testimony to the true faith. It was to quench this light that Satan worked through the envy of Joseph’s brothers to cause him to be sold as a slave in a heathen land. God overruled events, however, so that the knowledge of himself should be given to the people of Egypt. Both in the house of Potiphar and in the prison, Joseph received an education and training that, with the fear of God, prepared him for his high position as prime minister of the nation. From the palace of the Pharaohs his influence was felt throughout the land, and the knowledge of God spread far and wide. The Israelites in Egypt also became prosperous and wealthy, and such as were true to God exerted a wide-spread influence. The idolatrous priests were filled with alarm as they saw the new religion finding favor. Inspired by Satan with his own enmity toward the God of heaven, they set themselves to quench the light. To the priests was committed the education of the heir to the throne, and it was this spirit of determined opposition to God and zeal for idolatry that moulded the character of the future monarch, and led to cruelty and oppression toward the Hebrews.

During the forty years after the flight of Moses from Egypt, idolatry seemed to have conquered. Year by year the hopes of the Israelites grew fainter. Both king and people exulted in their power, and mocked the God of Israel. This spirit grew until it culminated in the Pharaoh who was confronted by Moses. When the Hebrew leader came before the king with a message from “Jehovah, God of Israel,” it was not ignorance of the true God, but defiance of his power, that prompted the answer, “Who is Jehovah, that I should obey his voice?... I know not Jehovah.” From first to last, Pharaoh’s opposition to the divine command was not the result of ignorance, but of hatred and defiance.

Though the Egyptians had so long rejected the knowledge of God, the Lord still gave them opportunity for repentance. In the days of Joseph, Egypt had been an asylum for Israel; God had been honored in the kindness shown his people; and now the Long-suffering One, slow to anger, and full of compassion, gave each judgment time to do its work; the Egyptians, cursed through the very objects they had worshiped,[501] had evidence of the power of Jehovah, and all who would, might submit to God and escape his judgments. The bigotry and stubbornness of the king resulted in spreading the knowledge of God, and bringing many of the Egyptians to give themselves to his service.

It was because the Israelites were so disposed to connect themselves with the heathen and imitate their idolatry that God had permitted them to go down into Egypt, where the influence of Joseph was widely felt, and where circumstances were favorable for them to remain a distinct people. Here also the gross idolatry of the Egyptians and their cruelty and oppression during the latter part of the Hebrew sojourn, should have inspired in them an abhorrence of idolatry, and should have led them to flee for refuge to the God of their fathers. This very providence Satan made a means to serve his purpose, darkening the minds of the Israelites, and leading them to imitate the practices of their heathen masters. On account of the superstitious veneration in which animals were held by the Egyptians, the Hebrews were not permitted, during their bondage, to present the sacrificial offerings. Thus their minds were not directed by this service to the great Sacrifice, and their faith was weakened. When the time came for Israel’s deliverance, Satan set himself to resist the purposes of God. It was his determination that that great people, numbering more than two million souls, should be held in ignorance and superstition. The people whom God had promised to bless and multiply, to make a power in the earth, and through whom he was to reveal the knowledge of his will,—the people whom he was to make the keepers of his law,—this very people Satan was seeking to keep in obscurity and bondage, that he might obliterate from their minds the remembrance of God.

When the miracles were wrought before the king, Satan was on the ground to counteract their influence, and prevent Pharaoh from acknowledging the supremacy of God, and obeying his mandate. Satan wrought to the utmost of his power to counterfeit the work of God and resist his will. The only result was to prepare the way for greater exhibitions of the divine power and glory, and to make more apparent, both to the Israelites and to all Egypt, the existence and sovereignty of the true and living God.

God delivered Israel with the mighty manifestations of his power, and with judgments upon all the gods of Egypt. “He brought forth his people with joy, and his chosen with gladness; ... that they might observe his statutes, and keep his laws.”[502] He rescued them from their servile state, that he might bring them to a good land,—a land which in his providence had been prepared for them as a refuge from their enemies, where they might dwell under the shadow of his wings. He would bring them to himself, and encircle them in his everlasting arms; and in return for all his goodness and mercy to them, they were required to have no other gods before him, the living God, and to exalt his name and make it glorious in the earth.

During the bondage in Egypt, many of the Israelites had, to a great extent, lost the knowledge of God’s law, and had mingled its precepts with heathen customs and traditions. God brought them to Sinai, and there with his own voice declared his law.

Satan and evil angels were on the ground. Even while God was proclaiming his law to his people, Satan was plotting to tempt them to sin. This people whom God had chosen, he would wrench away, in the very face of Heaven. By leading them into idolatry, he would destroy the efficacy of all worship; for how can man be elevated by adoring what is no higher than himself, and may be symbolized by his own handiwork? If men could become so blinded to the power, the majesty, and the glory of the infinite God as to represent him by a graven image, or even by a beast or reptile; if they could so forget their own divine relationship, formed in the image of their Maker, as to bow down to these revolting and senseless objects,—then the way was open for foul license; the evil passions of the heart would be unrestrained, and Satan would have full sway.

At the very foot of Sinai, Satan began to execute his plans for overthrowing the law of God, thus carrying forward the same work he had begun in heaven. During the forty days while Moses was in the mount with God, Satan was busy, exciting doubt, apostasy, and rebellion. While God was writing down his law, to be committed to his covenant people, the Israelites, denying their loyalty to Jehovah, were demanding gods of gold! When Moses came from the awful presence of the divine glory, with the precepts of the law which they had pledged themselves to obey, he found them, in open defiance of its commands, bowing in adoration before a golden image.

By leading Israel to this daring insult and blasphemy to Jehovah, Satan had planned to cause their ruin. Since they had proved themselves to be so utterly degraded, so lost to all sense of the privileges and blessings that God had offered them, and to their own solemn and repeated pledges of loyalty, the Lord would, he believed, divorce them from himself, and devote them to destruction. Thus would be secured the extinction of the seed of Abraham, that seed of promise that was to preserve the knowledge of the living God, and through whom He was to come,—the true seed, that was to conquer Satan. The great rebel had planned to destroy Israel, and thus thwart the purposes of God. But again he was defeated. Sinful as they were, the people of Israel were not destroyed. While those who stubbornly ranged themselves on the side of Satan were cut off, the people, humbled and repentant, were mercifully pardoned. The history of this sin was to stand as a perpetual testimony to the guilt and punishment of idolatry, and the justice and long-suffering mercy of God.

The whole universe had been witness to the scenes at Sinai. In the working out of the two administrations was seen the contrast between the government of God and that of Satan. Again the sinless inhabitants of other worlds beheld the results of Satan’s apostasy, and the kind of government he would have established in heaven, had he been permitted to bear sway.

By causing men to violate the second commandment, Satan aimed to degrade their conceptions of the Divine Being. By setting aside the fourth, he would cause them to forget God altogether. God’s claim to reverence and worship, above the gods of the heathen, is based upon the fact that he is the Creator, and that to him all other beings owe their existence. Thus it is presented in the Bible. Says the prophet Jeremiah: “Jehovah is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting King.... The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens. He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion.” “Every man is brutish in his knowledge; every founder is confounded by the graven image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them. They are vanity, and the work of errors; in the time of their visitation they shall perish. The portion of Jacob is not like them; for he is the former of all things.”[503] The Sabbath, as a memorial of God’s creative power, points to him as the maker of the heavens and the earth. Hence it is a constant witness to his existence and a reminder of his greatness, his wisdom, and his love. Had the Sabbath always been sacredly observed, there could never have been an atheist or an idolater.

The Sabbath institution, which originated in Eden, is as old as the world itself. It was observed by all the patriarchs, from creation down. During the bondage in Egypt, the Israelites were forced by their taskmasters to violate the Sabbath, and to a great extent they lost the knowledge of its sacredness. When the law was proclaimed at Sinai, the very first words of the fourth commandment were, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,”—showing that the Sabbath was not then instituted; we are pointed back for its origin to creation. In order to obliterate God from the minds of men, Satan aimed to tear down this great memorial. If men could be led to forget their Creator, they would make no effort to resist the power of evil, and Satan would be sure of his prey.

Satan’s enmity against God’s law has impelled him to war against every precept of the decalogue. To the great principle of love and loyalty to God, the Father of all, the principle of filial love and obedience is closely related. Contempt for parental authority will soon lead to contempt for the authority of God. Hence Satan’s efforts to lessen the obligation of the fifth commandment. Among heathen peoples the principle enjoined in this precept was little heeded. In many nations, parents were abandoned or put to death as soon as age had rendered them incapable of providing for themselves. In the family, the mother was treated with little respect, and upon the death of her husband she was required to submit to the authority of her eldest son. Filial obedience was enjoined by Moses; but as the Israelites departed from the Lord, the fifth commandment, with others, came to be disregarded.

Satan was “a murderer from the beginning;”[504] and as soon as he had obtained power over the human race, he not only prompted them to hate and slay one another, but, the more boldly to defy the authority of God, he made the violation of the sixth commandment a part of their religion.

By perverted conceptions of divine attributes, heathen nations were led to believe human sacrifices necessary to secure the favor of their deities; and the most horrible cruelties have been perpetrated under the various forms of idolatry. Among these was the practice of causing their children to pass through the fire before their idols. When one of them came through this ordeal unharmed, the people believed that their offerings were accepted; the one thus delivered was regarded as specially favored by the gods, was loaded with benefits, and ever afterward held in high esteem; and however aggravated his crimes, he was never punished. But should one be burned in passing through the fire, his fate was sealed; it was believed that the anger of the gods could be appeased only by taking the life of the victim, and he was accordingly offered as a sacrifice. In times of great apostasy these abominations prevailed, to some extent, among the Israelites.

The violation of the seventh commandment also was early practiced in the name of religion. The most licentious and abominable rites were made a part of the heathen worship. The gods themselves were represented as impure, and their worshipers gave the rein to the baser passions. Unnatural vices prevailed, and the religious festivals were characterized by universal and open impurity.

Polygamy was practiced at an early date. It was one of the sins that brought the wrath of God upon the antediluvian world. Yet after the flood it again became wide-spread. It was Satan’s studied effort to pervert the marriage institution, to weaken its obligations, and lessen its sacredness; for in no surer way could he deface the image of God in man, and open the door to misery and vice.

From the opening of the great controversy it has been Satan’s purpose to misrepresent God’s character, and to excite rebellion against his law; and this work appears to be crowned with success. The multitudes give ear to Satan’s deceptions, and set themselves against God. But amid the working of evil, God’s purposes move steadily forward to their accomplishment; to all created intelligences he is making manifest his justice and benevolence. Through Satan’s temptations the whole human race have become transgressors of God’s law; but by the sacrifice of his Son a way is opened whereby they may return to God. Through the grace of Christ they may be enabled to render obedience to the Father’s law. Thus in every age, from the midst of apostasy and rebellion, God gathers out a people that are true to him,—a people “in whose heart is his law.”[505]

It was by deception that Satan seduced angels; thus he has in all ages carried forward his work among men, and he will continue this policy to the last. Should he openly profess to be warring against God and his law, men would beware; but he disguises himself, and mixes truth with error. The most dangerous falsehoods are those that are mingled with truth. It is thus that errors are received that captivate and ruin the soul. By this means, Satan carries the world with him. But a day is coming when his triumph will be forever ended.

God’s dealings with rebellion will result in fully unmasking the work that has so long been carried on under cover. The results of Satan’s rule, the fruits of setting aside the divine statutes, will be laid open to the view of all created intelligences. The law of God will stand fully vindicated. It will be seen that all the dealings of God have been conducted with reference to the eternal good of his people, and the good of all the worlds that he has created. Satan himself, in presence of the witnessing universe, will confess the justice of God’s government, and the righteousness of his law.

The time is not far distant when God will arise to vindicate his insulted authority. “The Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity.”[506] “But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth?”[507] The people of Israel, because of their sinfulness, were forbidden to approach the mount when God was about to descend upon it to proclaim his law, lest they should be consumed by the burning glory of his presence. If such manifestations of his power marked the place chosen for the proclamation of God’s law, how terrible must be his tribunal when he comes for the execution of these sacred statutes. How will those who have trampled upon his authority endure his glory in the great day of final retribution? The terrors of Sinai were to represent to the people the scenes of the Judgment. The sound of a trumpet summoned Israel to meet with God. The voice of the archangel and the trump of God shall summon, from the whole earth, both the living and the dead to the presence of their Judge. The Father and the Son, attended by a multitude of angels, were present upon the mount. At the great Judgment day, Christ will come “in the glory of his Father with his angels.”[508] He shall then sit upon the throne of his glory, and before him shall be gathered all nations.

When the divine presence was manifested upon Sinai, the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire in the sight of all Israel. But when Christ shall come in glory with his holy angels, the whole earth shall be ablaze with the terrible light of his presence. “Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence; a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people.”[509] A fiery stream shall issue and come forth from before him, which shall cause the elements to melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be burned up. “The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel.”[510]

Never since man was created had there been witnessed such a manifestation of divine power as when the law was proclaimed from Sinai. “The earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God; even Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel.”[511] Amid the most terrific convulsions of nature, the voice of God, like a trumpet, was heard from the cloud. The mountain was shaken from base to summit, and the hosts of Israel, pale and trembling with terror, lay upon their faces upon the earth. He whose voice then shook the earth has declared, “Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.”[512] Says the Scripture, “The Lord also shall roar from on high, and utter his voice from his holy habitation;” “and the heavens and the earth shall shake.”[512] In that great coming day, the heaven itself shall depart “as a scroll when it is rolled together.”[513] And every mountain and island shall be moved out of its place. “The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.”[514]

“Therefore shall all hands be faint,” all faces shall be “turned into paleness,” “and every man’s heart shall melt. And they shall be afraid; pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them.” “And I will punish the world for their evil,” saith the Lord, “and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.”[515]