THE LAW OF GOD by E. E. Andross

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 25, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 33.

THE LAW OF GOD.

By E. E. Andross

BY E. E. ANDROSS.

"THE Lord said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there; and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written; that thou mayest teach them." Ex. 24: 12. Moses responded to God's call. Verse 18. "And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon Mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God." Chapter 31: 18.

The Lord told Moses, while he was in the mount, of Israel's apostasy in the worship of the golden calf: "I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiff-necked people." Chapter 32: 9. Moses was directed to return to the camp without delay. "Go, get thee down," were the words of God. As Moses drew near the encampment, he beheld the people shouting and dancing around their idol. Instead of engaging in the solemn worship of God, searching their hearts and putting away all evil, thus drawing nearer and still nearer to God, preparatory to the reception of the holy precepts, which they had trembled to hear spoken from the lips of Jehovah but a few days before, as they should have been doing, how different the scene! A scene of heathen riot, in imitation of the idolatrous feasts of Egypt, met the view of the man of God. There, in the sight of the burning glory of God, Israel had "corrupted themselves."

Moses was overwhelmed. He had just come from the presence of God's glory, and, though he had been warned of their course, yet he was unprepared to witness the dreadful exhibition of the degradation of Israel. "To show his abhorrence of their crime, he threw down the tables of stone, and they were broken in the sight of all the people, thus signifying that, as they had broken their covenant with God, so God had broken his covenant with them."

We have all broken God's covenant, for we have all sinned and come short of his glory. Rom. 3: 23. Though we may not have made a literal calf, and worshiped it, yet we have chosen other gods to go before us; and, as the tables of stone were broken beneath the

mount, so must our hearts of stone be broken; for says David, "A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." Ps. 51: 17.

But how is this to be accomplished? "Is not my word like as a fire? saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?" Jer. 23: 29. Yes, God has even said: "A new heart also will I give you; and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them." Eze. 36: 26, 27.

When we hear Christ's voice, and open the door of the heart, letting him in (Rev. 3: 20), he then, by his Spirit, writes that same law, "not" this time "in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart" (2 Cor. 3: 3), for he says, "I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people." Heb. 8: 10.

The individual in whom this blessed work has been accomplished, sees the law of God, not as "grievous" (1 John 5: 3), but as that in which he delights (Rom. 7: 22); not as that which is repulsive and from which he would turn away, but as that in which he would meditate day and night (Ps. 1: 2); not as that which would be a "yoke of bondage," or would lead him into slavery, but as "the law of the Spirit of life," which "in Christ Jesus hath made him" free from the law of sin and death (Rom. 8: 2). And, thus realizing that "the law of his God is in his heart, none of his steps shall slide" (Ps. 37: 31); having that "great peace" which is "as a river" and that "righteousness as the waves of the sea" (Ps. 119: 165; Isa. 48: 18), he exclaims from the depths of his soul, "O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day" (Ps. 119: 97).

Having been thus made a tree of righteousness, the planting of the Lord (Isa. 61: 3; Ps. 1: 1-3), in the soil of love (Eph. 3: 17), and watered by the Spirit of God (Isa. 44: 3), he will bear rich clusters of fruit, to the honor and glory of God.

Dear reader, if this is not your experience, will you not respond to the gracious invitation of the Saviour, as he pleads with you, with all the tenderness of that great heart of love, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest"? Come, and receive that rest which the cross supplies to the weary, the heavy laden, the sin-sick soul. "Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." Plunge to-day beneath the cleansing waves of that Fountain which has been opened to the house of David for sin and uncleanness. Will you not accept of him in whom you can keep that blessed law of love, and thus give you a right to the tree of life, and an entrance through the gates of pearl to the city of God? Oh, come, come, come!