“Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; but blessed is he who keeps the law.” — Proverbs 29:18

For forty days, leaving his brother, Aaron, in charge of the people, Moses met with God on Mount Sinai. During his absence, the people grew rebellious and frustrated, not only with Moses’ absence but with a God they couldn’t see. Aaron told them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me” (Exodus 32:2). The gold was melted down, shaped into the form of a calf and the people were delighted. This golden calf was their new god and they worshipped, danced and sang around it. Aaron built an altar in front of it where they sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. They held a great festival, engaging in all kinds of revelry, thrilled to be worshipping a god they’d created themselves.

With two tablets of stone, containing the law of God, written by His finger, Moses came down from the mountain to deliver it to his people. Shocked and angered by what he saw, he smashed the tablets to the ground. “You shall have no other gods before me.

You shall make no graven image and you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.” The first three commandments had already been crudely violated. Moses was shocked, but God wasn’t! God had not learned something new about people. The people had learned something new about themselves. The Israelites discovered what the law was intended to teach them – that they cannot be what God required them to be!! God did not give the law naively, expecting them to keep it, but because He knew they could not keep it, and they had to discover that for themselves. It is equally of vital importance that we all make the same discovery.

The law serves as a plumb line (Amos 7.8). A plumb line never makes a wall crooked, it only exposes that it is crooked! The law doesn’t make us sin, it only exposes our sin. It drives us to discover the only one capable of being godly is God, the only one capable of being Christ-like is Christ! We cannot keep the laws of God ourselves, for they reveal His moral character which is unique to Him and impossible to us. It is only as Christ lives His own life within us and expresses His own character through us that we can begin to be what we were created to be.

Prayer: Dear Lord, thank you for giving us the Ten commandments. May I always be conscious of your righteousness, revealed in the commandments, and make that the plumb line that exposes my need and drives me repeatedly to you.

To reflect upon: What have the Ten Commandments revealed to me about myself? Which ones are exposing my need to grow in grace, and do I allow them to drive me to God?