They Asked for a Middleman at the Mountain and God Granted It

If God spoke to him directly he does not think he would want it.

He has never said that and it took him a long time to be able to think it. The version he says out loud is that he is not the kind of person who has experiences, which is a modest and socially acceptable sentence and is not the truth.

The truth is closer to this: being told about God is manageable. It comes in a shape he can hold. It arrives on a Sunday, at a certain length, in a room where nothing is going to happen that he has not planned for, and he can take from it what he can carry and leave the rest, and nobody is looking at him.

Being spoken to is not manageable. It cannot be scheduled and it cannot be limited and there is no way to know in advance what it would say.

So he has arranged a life where the first thing happens weekly and the second thing does not happen at all, and he calls the arrangement humility.

There is a mountain in Exodus where a whole nation asked for exactly this and got it.

The request

Here it is, in the King James Version, right after the Ten Commandments are spoken out loud:

And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off. And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die. (Exodus 20:18-19)

They removed, and stood afar off.

That is a physical movement away, by everybody, and it is the first thing recorded.

Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us.

That is the request and it is not rebellion. It is fear, and the fear is reasonable, and they give the reason: lest we die. They are not being difficult. They had just heard something enormous and they wanted it mediated.

And notice they offer a good faith commitment: and we will hear. They are not asking to be left alone. They are asking for a different channel, and they promise to obey what comes through it.

You are not a coward for this and you were never being rebellious. Exodus 20:19 has an entire nation ask for it with fear as the stated reason, and it is the Holy Spirit rather than a bolder temperament who makes a man able to want the other thing.

What God said about the request

And then the strange part, which is in Deuteronomy where Moses retells it.

And the LORD heard the voice of your words, when ye spake unto me; and the LORD said unto me, I have heard the voice of the words of this people, which they have spoken unto thee: they have well said all that they have spoken. (Deuteronomy 5:28)

They have well said all that they have spoken.

He approves it. He does not rebuke them for it. Given where they were and what they had just heard, the request was the right one and He says so.

And then the next verse, which is the one that carries the ache:

O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever! (Deuteronomy 5:29)

O that there were such an heart in them.

That is God saying He wishes for something they do not have. It is a longing, in the first person, and what He is longing for is not obedience to a mediator. It is a heart, in them, that would want Him.

So the request was granted, and it was well said, and there is a sentence right after it that shows what He would rather have had.

You are heard when you ask for less and you were never refused for it. Deuteronomy 5:28 has God approve the request and Deuteronomy 5:29 has Him say what He wished for instead, and it is His Spirit who is named elsewhere as the answer to that exact longing.

The mountain believers have come to

And the passage in Hebrews that puts the two mountains side by side, which is the resolution.

For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more. (Hebrews 12:18-19)

Which voice they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more.

The writer of Hebrews recalls the exact scene, including the request, and then says believers have not come to that mountain.

But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant. (Hebrews 12:22-24)

Ye are come. Perfect tense. Already arrived.

And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, which means there is a mediator in the arrangement and He is named, and He is not a man standing between a person and God who has to be found and kept.

You have come to a different mountain and you were never standing at the foot of the burning one. Hebrews 12:22 says ye are come unto mount Sion in the perfect tense, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes that a location a man is actually standing in.

What He wanted, said twice

And the longing in Deuteronomy 5:29 is answered twice in the Old Testament, out loud, by two different men.

Moses, when somebody complained that people outside the tent were prophesying:

And Moses said unto him, Enviest thou for my sake? would God that all the LORD's people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit upon them! (Numbers 11:29)

Would God that all the LORD's people were prophets. Said by the mediator himself. The man the people had asked to stand in the middle wanted the middle position abolished.

And Joel, promising it:

And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. (Joel 2:28)

Upon all flesh. Not upon a mediator on behalf of the rest.

That is the verse Peter quotes on the day the church starts, which means the arrangement a man has settled for is not the one he is actually under.

You have His Spirit poured out on all flesh and you were never assigned a channel. Joel 2:28 says upon all flesh and Numbers 11:29 has the mediator himself wish for it, and it is that same Spirit who makes being spoken to a thing a man can survive.