Just before God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses, He instructed him to tell Israel to come to the base of Mount Sinai. Moses was to warn them not to touch the mountain lest He “break forth” onto them and they die (see Exodus 19:22-24). This was because, even though God is omniscient, He has an immediate presence.

Words fail miserably to express what this means, but I will try by using an infinitely insufficient analogy. It’s like an extremely good judge who is waiting to pass sentence on the most evil of criminals—a monster of an excuse for a man who abducted, tortured, raped, and slowly slit the throats of a dozen young girls. The man laughs in the faces of distraught and grieving relatives in anticipation, as the judge lifts his gavel to pass sentence.

To his shock the judge’s eyes change and flash with intense indignation, and then with purposeful anger in his words he passes the death sentence. The gravity of his tone and the depth of his wrath were in direct proportion to his goodness.

Again, the analogy is desperately wanting, but it gives us a minuscule insight into the fact that God is so morally impeccable, so absolutely good, so utterly holy that if we were to stand in His presence for a split second, His wrath would spill upon us at lightning-speed, and devour us.

The multitude of our crimes against His perfect Law would draw it upon us like an anvil to an electrified magnet. He would “break forth” onto us.

On Judgment Day He will fall in wrath upon sinful humanity. How inadequate are the words of Scripture to our dull minds if God doesn’t quicken them to us—“Wherefore knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.”

Are you persuading men? If not, then you don’t know the terror of the Lord. If you are unsaved, are you persuaded today to flee to the cross? If not, then you haven’t seen the depth of your own sins and so need to creep up to the Mountain and listen to the Ten Commandments. I plead with you, do that today before the arresting officer of death seizes upon you, and the celestial beings justly cast you into God’s terrible and dark prison—with no hope of parole.