For the past several days, since I first read this passage, I’ve had a deep moving in my heart. What I “feel” has been informed by what went before, what I’ve been reading and processing. We live linearly, sequentially in time, moving forward moment by moment, event by event. We build upon what we experienced and what we learned yesterday.  

I’ve been reading right through from Genesis and now am in one of my favorites, the book of Deuteronomy, where Moses recaps the law given by God, and some of the events which happened to the previous generation of Israelites. He is speaking to the second generation of Israelites who came out of Egypt and went through the 40 years of wandering in the desert. Some of these saw the mighty acts of God, the provision in all the years in the desert; they saw the fire of God on the mountain when He gave the Law to Moses. He is also speaking to those who were born during that time, who never saw the earlier deliverance and provision of God and punishments of God for rebellion, but had probably heard the stories. They hadn’t lived in Egypt, only heard about it; they only knew this dry desert land. They hadn’t eaten the foods of Egypt, the leeks and onions and garlic and fish; they only knew the manna sent from God.

So Moses is reiterating the laws of God to them; the promises and the warnings. He is preparing this generation to now enter the land promised to them by God. Their fathers and uncles and granddads hadn’t entered, had in fact, all died off in the fearsome desert as a judgment of God on them for their rebellion; their unbelief. They refused to go in and take the land. They discouraged one another with their unbelief and in that rebelled against what God was telling them to do.

It was this first generation of Israelites who were miraculously taken out of Egypt who couldn’t stand to hear the voice of God at Mt. Sinai. They were terrified and didn’t want to be anywhere near God. They certainly had reason to fear Him, but their response was wrong! They ran away and hid, rather than humble themselves to hear.

Moses is retelling the incident of these same men coming to Moses to tell him they do not want to be standing at the mountain, viewing the fantastic display of God’s power in the fire and thunder. They wanted Moses to hear God and then relay to them what He said. It sounds reasonable on the surface. But it reveals a deeper truth about them: they didn’t want God in their lives up front and personal.

God Himself hears their words to Moses and recognizes that they’ve made a choice based on their willfulness and hard hearts. They don’t want to be confronted with the living God so they defer to the man Moses. (Let him get burned up in that awful fire, not us!) Of course, they phrased their request in such a way as to indicate they would listen to what God said to Moses, and do it all.

However, the lie is revealed in this heart-wrenching cry of God:

             Oh that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear Me and keep all My   commandments always, that it may be well with them and their sons forever! (Deut. 5:29)
Oh, the agony of God over His people! They say with their mouths that they will obey His words. But obedience must come from the heart, not just the mouth or the outward religious acts. God knew.
And God knows. He knows our hearts and He hears our words. When we complain He hears our words. When we say we trust God but stop there, with our words, He hears. He knows!
And I believe He looks at the church today and cries, “Oh that they had such a heart in them (as they say they have), that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments always, that it may be well with them and their sons forever!”
Oh the heartbreak of God! Oh, shall we not break our hearts for His broken heart? Shall we not fall on our faces in repentance for the sin of our generation, for the sin and complacency of our church in the world today? Shall we not humble ourselves before the grace and the fire of the living God? Shall we not really fear Him and keep His words?
I hear so much about how much God loves us and wants only our best. This cry of God proves the truth of those words, indeed.
But do we not grasp that our response should be hearts to fear Him and live in obedience to His words? This is the Way of Jesus. This is the life of faith. Faith equals obedience. Lack of faith, unbelief, is disobedience.
Faith in and fear of God overcomes fear of what might happen to us if we really obey God!
We talk about revival in the church. It starts here, with ourselves. It starts with me and God. It starts with hearing the heartbreak of God.
“Oh that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments always, that it may be well with them and their sons forever!” (Deut. 5:29)