For the Lord had said to Moses, “Say to the people of Israel, ‘You are a stiff-necked people; if for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you. So now take off your ornaments, that I may know what to do with you.’”
We have just encountered Resurrection Sunday where Jesus has taken onto Himself the sins of all mankind for all time. Our sin is no longer an obstacle to a relationship with God.
Here in Exodus 33, God is speaking to that generation of people He has just set free. They follow Him but why? If their intentions are to follow God for forty years in the wilderness why is it that only Joshua and Caleb got to enter into the Promise Land?
Ornaments are about appearance, the personality they want to portray to others. There are a number of reasons why people do that just as there was more than one reason only Joshua and Caleb were the only two entering into the Promise. Moses and Aaron failed God in different ways and were denied. It is reasonable to assume there were many masks those people hid behind.
The last sentence above only makes sense to us, the observers of His Word. God always knew the heart of the ungrateful, stubborn and proud people He denied access to His promise.
The lesson here more than God’s promises is to be real with God. No one likes a phony and whatever they have to say will be heard with a fair amount of doubt.
Here we are on this side of the Cross and the same can be said of this journey we take because of the promises God has made in Christ. If we haven’t seen some of those we should look within ourselves and see if we are being real with God.
“Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and love greetings in the marketplaces and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts,
Am I a scribe or a scribbler? A little of both if I am going to be honest with God and with you.