'God is come to prove you'

 Exo 20:20  And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not. 

God is come to prove you. Why? He is showing Himself to them that they might see Him, in all His Power and Majesty that they might know whom they serve, this was designed to be a deterrent to sin.

I imagine if they had seen what God wanted them to, if they had done as they had been asked this whole world history might have turned out different.

Instead God came down, in a cloud, He had Moses set protections and precautions, He told Moses how to have the people prepare, to get ready to meet their God.

He came down to the Mountain, Mt Sinai to talk to the people, He has delivered the 10 commandments that they might know His Law and hear Him deliver it for effect. Boy does it affect them.

The people were afraid and removed themselves 12 miles away from the voice and presence of God. God came to the people, the people ran. God came to prove the people and the people proved unworthy. Interesting, how many of us flippantly say "If only I could see God, if only He would come here and speak to me in person".

God came to prove the people, in His natural form as He truly is, not in a Christophany, not in an assumed form, in His natural form. The people RAN.

In fact this is where the people finally accepted Moses fully as their leader and mediator. 

Exo 20:19  And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die. 

Do you understand this? Think it through fully?

God gave the people of Israel what we all say we want, a visitation in person from Him. Of course most of us think of the grandfather image that has been fomented by the media (Books, tv etc) instead of His actual visage, His actual presence.

The question is: what do we do when God comes to prove us? Do we run and hide? Do we go and ask others to pray for us instead of talking to God ourselves?

We have created the image of God, a pre defined image that makes God more palatable to us, kind of like we do for the devil, a little red suit, horns and a pitchfork, right?

If God were to come prove us, His people today, to keep us from sinning what would we do? If God came down the same way He came to the Israelites, what would we do? 

Would we recognize the Awesome power? The Majesty? The Power? Would we fall down in fear, respect and awe? or would we remove ourselves from the presence of God? Would we flee in fear and be proven unworthy?