It was a display of incredible power: thunder, lightning and boiling smoke covered the mountain as it shook violently. An entire nation of several million people stood near and watched. The people of Israel were meeting their God this day. From the foot of the mountain they witnessed the power of God descending upon it (Exodus 20:16-20). They said, “Surely the Lord our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire. We have seen this day that God speaks with man; yet he lives” (Deuteronomy 5:24).

The greatest government the world has ever known is coming.

This was the scene when God gave His law at Mount Sinai. The nation of Israel had been called to come to this mountain. Through a miraculous deliverance from slavery in Egypt, God brought them here. At this mountain, He gave them His commandments which are “holy and just and good” (Romans 7:12).

A mountain in the Bible represents the seat of government. From the mountain, the place of government, the law goes out to a nation. From the mountain of the Lord this day the law went out to Israel.

Their leader Moses wrote in essence what this law required of them. “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good?” (Deuteronomy 10:12-13). The awesome display of power came down to this. It came down to the conversion of their hearts to obey the law of God.

God gave the law to Israel at Sinai so they might be the living example to the entire world. If she obeyed with all her heart, blessings, honor and great renown among the nations of the world would come. People would say, “For what great nation is there that has God so near to it…and what great nation is there that has such statutes and righteous judgments as are in all this?” (Deuteronomy 4:7-8).

Sadly, that heart was not in them. The God whose power was so evidently on display lamented, “Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and always keep all My commandments, that it might be well with them and with their children forever!” (Deuteronomy 5:29).

They had the opportunity to become a light for the entire world. They threw it away and rejected obedience to the law God delivered from His mountain. Therefore, God scattered them among the nations of the world. Israel became as Moses promised, “an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations” (Deuteronomy 28:37).

As sad as the history of the whole nation of Israel has become, there is a great purpose in their disobedience. As the apostle Paul wrote, “All these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Corinthians 10:11). Israel has become an example of the consequence for breaking the law of God.

Yet she will one day become an example of a nation that keeps the law of God as He intends. They will keep it from the heart. “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (Hebrews 8:10).

One day, the fortunes of the whole house of Israel, wherever God has scattered them, will be reversed. In that day, the law of God will again go out in great power and wonder. This time it will go not only to Israel only but to the entire world.

The greatest government the world has ever known is coming. The mountain of the Lord “shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it. Many nations shall come and say, ‘Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths.’ For out of Zion the law shall go forth, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (Micah 4:1-2).

God intends for Israel to come again to His mountain and to receive His law. He will bring her with all the nations of the world to the mountain of the Lord. After the worldwide devastation to come as the result of breaking the law of God, the call will go out. Many nations will go up to the mountain of the Lord.

You do not have to wait until then to answer the call to go up. Before great devastation comes you can go up to the mountain of the Lord. You have an invitation to go now and have the law of God written in your heart. Will you go up?