Day 103 — Darkness and Drawing Near
When Holy Fear Becomes Holy Access
However you can engage today, we’re here. Read, listen or both.
The written portion gives an overview, with verses broken down into smaller bites, and journaling/prayer prompts for reflection. In the podcast, Steve Traylor reflects on today’s passage with Scripture reading, a deeper pastoral teaching, and prayer (about 15 minutes). Perfect for morning coffee, commutes, or when your eyes need a rest.
📖 Resources: Printable Bible Book Guides (Genesis & Job) · Hard Questions, Honest Answers
We’ve written three articles That go further into the questions Exodus raises—for those who want more. We will leave them here throughout the Exodus studies:
When the God of Love Sends Plagues — How do we reconcile the harshness of the plagues with a God of lovingkindness? A companion to Days 88–93.
What Is a Miracle? — What miracles actually are in Scripture, why they cluster rather than continue, and what that means when God seems quiet. A companion to Day 95.
Not the Same God — Why the worship God prescribed in Exodus is structurally different from every other sacrificial religion in the ancient world. A companion to Days 101–124.
Exodus 20:18-26
Stay close to this passage.
Israel has just heard something unprecedented. Not a burning bush speaking to a single man in a wilderness. Not a dream in the night or a vision at an altar. The voice of God came to an entire nation simultaneously—thunder, lightning, the blast of a trumpet no human hand was sounding, a mountain on fire—and out of all of it, ten words. The voice of the living God addressing His people directly.
And the people could not bear it. They backed away. They put distance between themselves and the mountain. They said to Moses: You speak to us, and we will listen. But don’t let God speak to us, or we will die.
That response deserves more than a quick reading. It is not faithlessness. It is not cowardice. It is the honest reaction of human beings who have just felt the full weight of Who they are standing before, and who know—with something deeper than reasoning—that they are not equal to Him.
What happens next says everything about who God is, how He has always been approached, and what He is building toward—a truth that will not be fully visible until a man walks out of a tomb in Jerusalem centuries later.
Today we see that the fear Israel felt at the mountain was not the obstacle to approaching God—it was the first honest step toward Him—and that God could not simply remove the distance—because the distance is not a policy He chose but a reality of what He is—and that providing a way across it is the most profound act of grace imaginable.
1. Fear and Its Purpose
Exodus 20:18-20
18 All the people perceived the thunderings, the lightnings, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking. When the people saw it, they trembled, and stayed at a distance. 19 They said to Moses, “Speak with us yourself, and we will listen; but don’t let God speak with us, lest we die.”
20 Moses said to the people, “Don’t be afraid, for God has come to test you, and that his fear may be before you, that you won’t sin.”
The people’s response is entirely understandable. Smoke, fire, the ground shaking, a trumpet growing louder with no human source—the presence of God is a physical event, and they are standing at its edge. They back away. They ask Moses to stand between them and what they cannot survive.
Moses does not rebuke them. He does not tell them their fear is wrong. Instead he makes a crucial distinction: Don’t be afraid—stop the terror that paralyzes and drives you away—but let the fear of God be before you—let the awe that orients remain.
There are two kinds of fear in this passage, and they are not the same thing. One is the panicked flight from a God you cannot face. The other is the settled, reverent weight of knowing exactly who you are dealing with and choosing to remain anyway. Moses is calling Israel to move from the first to the second. The thunder is not punishment. It is instruction. God came to the mountain in consuming power precisely so that Israel would understand clearly what kind of God they were in covenant with—and live accordingly.
The American church tends to fall into one of two ditches with this, and both are worth naming.
The first ditch is authority that uses the fear of God as a weapon (not the dominant cultural tone any longer), producing terror and shame and a God who feels more like an abuser than a Father. That version of fear drives people away from God—and rightly so, because it is a distortion. The fear of God in Scripture is not the fear of an abusive authority. It is the appropriate response to genuine greatness—the kind of fear that produces not cowering but honesty, not paralysis but humility, not distance but the right kind of nearness.
The second ditch is equally dangerous and arguably more pervasive in the church today: the complete absence of fear. A God who is endlessly therapeutic, perpetually affirming, never holy enough to make anyone uncomfortable. A God defined not by what He has revealed about Himself in Scripture but by what people find acceptable. This God cannot save anyone because he is too small to be necessary. A God you are never afraid of is a God you have made small enough to manage—and a God that small is not the God of Exodus 20.
Both distortions destroy the same thing: the real encounter. The mountain at Sinai does not let either one stand. God is not an abuser. And He is not manageable. The fear of God is not the opposite of drawing near to Him. It is the only appropriate way to draw near to Him.
Journaling/Prayer: Which kind of fear describes your relationship with God right now—the panicking kind that drives you away, or the orienting kind that holds you close even in the weight of His holiness?
If you have been kept away from God by a fear that feels more like terror than reverence—where did that come from? It may be worth bringing directly to Him. He is not the author of that kind of fear.
2. The Mediator and the Darkness
Exodus 20:21
21 The people stayed at a distance, and Moses came near to the thick darkness where God was.
One verse. And it may be the most structurally important sentence in the entire passage.
The contrast is stark and intentional: the people stayed far away—Moses drew near. Everyone else retreats. One man advances. And he advances not toward light but toward thick darkness—the same darkness the people could not bear to approach.
Moses did not approach because he was braver than everyone else. He approached because God had called him to that role from the burning bush forward—granting him an access that was not available to anyone else, not even the priests. Exodus 19:21-22 makes this plain: even the most ritually prepared people in Israel would be struck down if they approached without authorization. The boundary was absolute. What made Moses different was not his courage but his commission. He drew near the darkness because God had appointed him to go there—and would have destroyed anyone else who tried.
The structure of this verse is doing something the text alone cannot say plainly: mediation is necessary. There must be someone who can go where the people cannot go. There must be someone who stands between the consuming holiness of God and the people who cannot survive direct exposure to it. Moses crosses the boundary. He enters the darkness. He carries the people’s need into the presence that would destroy them if they entered on their own.
Every time Moses goes up and comes back down, the text is preparing you to recognize someone else. Centuries later, the writer of Hebrews will set Moses’ mediation directly against a greater one: “There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). Moses went up and came back repeatedly, never able to hold the boundary open permanently. Christ crossed it once, in both directions at the same time—into the darkness of death and back out into light—permanently.
The people stayed far away. Moses drew near. One day the One who crossed the boundary permanently would make it possible for the people themselves to draw near—not by removing the holiness, but by becoming their holiness in full.
Journaling/Prayer: The people could not go where Moses went. And Moses could not go permanently where Christ went. Where do you find yourself in this picture—staying far away, or being carried near by someone who can go where you cannot?
If you are in a season where God feels impossibly distant, you are in good company with everyone who stood at the foot of that mountain. But the mediator has already crossed. You are invited to come in behind him.
3. The Altar and Approaching God
Exodus 20:22-26
22 Yahweh said to Moses, “This is what you shall tell the children of Israel: ‘You yourselves have seen that I have talked with you from heaven. 23 You shall most certainly not make gods of silver or gods of gold for yourselves to be alongside me. 24 You shall make an altar of earth for me, and shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your cattle. In every place where I record my name I will come to you and I will bless you. 25 If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of cut stones; for if you lift up your tool on it, you have polluted it. 26 You shall not go up by steps to my altar, that your nakedness may not be exposed to it.’
God does not leave the chapter at the mountain’s terror. He immediately provides a path. The people have heard His voice from heaven—the reality of that direct, unmediated communication is named one final time as the foundation for what follows. Then, out of that foundation, comes an invitation: come to an altar, bring your offerings, and I will meet you there.
The altar instructions seem simple—almost anticlimactic after everything that has preceded them. Earth or uncut field stone. No steps. Bring animals. That is all. But the simplicity is itself the point.
You shall not make gods of silver or gold (v.23). The prohibition on metal idols follows directly from the second commandment and contextualizes what comes next. The nations surrounding Israel built elaborate altars and images—finely cut stone, decorated surfaces, elevated platforms that announced their devotion through craftsmanship and scale. God is drawing a deliberate contrast. His altar is to be the opposite of all of that.
Make an altar of earth (v.24). The most available material. What the ground itself provides. No quarrying required, no shaping, no finishing. In every place where God appointed His name to be remembered—He will come and He will bless. Access to God is not the privilege of the architecturally impressive. He comes to piles of earth. He comes to field stones. He comes to wherever His people bring what they have and ask Him to meet them.
If stone, do not cut it (v.25). A chisel applied to the stone pollutes it. Not because tools are unholy, but because human craftsmanship must not improve the approach to God. The moment human ingenuity begins “enhancing” the place of worship, something has already gone wrong—we are beginning to come on our terms rather than His. The nations built magnificent altars; God asked for field stones. The difference is not aesthetic. It is theological: you do not arrive at God through the excellence of what you construct. You arrive through what He has provided.
No steps to the altar (v.26). The practical concern is modesty. But the principle behind the practicality runs deeper. The nations built elevated altars with grand approaches—ascending staircases, raised platforms, architectural displays of devotion. God’s altar is reached on level ground. No elaborate ascent. No performance of approach. Come simply. Come as you are. The access is not earned by the quality of your arrival.
Taken together, the altar instructions say the same thing the preface to the Ten Commandments said: God comes to ordinary people with ordinary offerings on ordinary ground, and He promises to bless them there. The burned animal on the earth altar is a foreshadowing—someone innocent, offered in the worshiper’s place, making possible a meeting that the worshiper’s own condition cannot sustain. Every altar points forward.
Journaling/Prayer: What do you tend to bring to God—elaborate preparation, a feeling of readiness, a sense that you have sufficiently sorted yourself first? Or do you come as you are, on simple ground, with what you have?
If you have been staying away because you don’t feel ready, notice: the altar God asked for was made of earth. Field stones. He promised to come to the pile of uncut rock. He will come to you.
Summary
Exodus 20:18-26 is the passage that tells you what to do with everything the Ten Commandments revealed. The law has done its work—it has shown the people the size of the God they serve, the weight of the holiness they cannot match, the distance between where they stand and where He is. They are trembling at the foot of the mountain. They know they cannot go up.
Moses’ response names both truths at once: the fear is appropriate, and the paralysis is not necessary. God did not come to the mountain to condemn Israel from a distance. He came to test them—to press into their understanding the reality of who He is—so that the fear of Him would shape the way they lived. And then He immediately provided a way for them to come.
The altar instructions are not a footnote. They are the answer. Come to simple ground. Bring what you have. I will record my name there. I will come to you. I will bless you. The God who fills a mountain with fire promises to show up at a pile of earth.
And Moses—who alone could draw near the thick darkness—is pointing forward the whole time. He is carrying what the people cannot carry for themselves. He is crossing the boundary that would destroy them. He is the preview of a Mediator who would one day cross that boundary not just for Israel at the foot of Sinai, but for everyone who has ever stood far away from God and known they could not close the distance on their own.
The fear at the mountain was not the end of the story. It was the beginning of understanding what kind of God you are dealing with—and why the altar He provided, and the Mediator He sent, are the most important things in the world.
Action / Attitude for Today
Carry this through your day: the God who set a mountain on fire still comes to piles of ordinary earth. He does not require an impressive approach. He requires a real one.
If you can, find five minutes of quiet and bring to God the thing you have been withholding because it doesn’t feel ready to offer—the prayer you haven’t prayed because it’s too raw, the grief you haven’t named because it’s too large, the doubt you haven’t voiced because it feels disqualifying. Lay it down on simple ground. That is the altar He asked for.
If you can’t do that today—if God still feels like fire on a mountain you cannot approach—write down the single word that names the distance you feel. Just one word. That is already more honest than staying silent, and honesty is where the altar begins.
If even that is too much, receive only this: Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was. He went in for you. And the One Moses was pointing toward went in permanently—through the darkness all the way out the other side. The way is open. You are not disqualified from drawing near.
Say this prayer with as much of you as can mean it: “God, I am still standing far away from something—from You, from healing, from the life I thought I would have. I hear the thunder but I cannot make myself move toward it. Send the Mediator. Let Him carry me where I cannot go alone. I bring what I have to the simplest altar I know how to build. Come. You promised to come. Amen.”
You don’t have to climb a staircase to reach God. He meets you on level ground.
The Bible for the Broken is published by Aurion Press LLC. © Aurion Press LLC. All rights reserved.