Awesome! is a word we use quite a lot in our culture. We talk about awesome roast dinners… and awesome free-kicks… and awesome movies… But Job 25:2 says ‘Dominion and awe belong to God’, so only God is truly awesome.

I’m reading The Living God by Peter Lewis at the moment (an astonishing book) and just read about Mount Sinai and the 10 Commandments. I was so stunned by this paragraph, I had to share it. It’ll help to read Exodus 19:16-19 for the context…

On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled.  Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. 18 Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain  trembled violently, and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him. Exodus 19:16-19

Peter Lewis writes:

“It is surely fair to say that awe is in danger of becoming the forgotten emotion among Christians today. This is not because we know better but because we know less! We have lost sight somewhat of the awesome holiness of God. We have become desensitized to sin. We do not realize how extraodrinary it is that we can survive in God’s presence. The fact that it took a Calvary for us to ‘have confidence to enter the Most High Place’ (Heb 10:19) should make us think again: ‘Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, by becoming a curse for us’ (Gal 3:13)

There is only one place on earth more awesome than Sinai and that is Calvary. There God the One and Only did not come down to a mountain but was lifted up on a cross. There the Son of God, who had come in our human nature, bore the penalty for our human sin, our great rebellion against God. There the Judge was judged in our place and the One who had given the commandments died for those who had broken them.”

The living God, the true God, the God of the bible – alone – is truly awesome.