Hell and Judgement - Walter Martin

Walter Martin is the Original Bible Answer Man.

"Who is on The Lord's side?" This quotation is from Exodus 32: 26. Moses asked the question of the children of Israel and called on all those who were on The Lord's side to come to him, and all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him. Moses himself belonged to this tribe of Levi which God had set aside for His special service. These men were ordered to do a terrible thing, witness: "Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor. And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men!" Was not this a terrible thing to do, and a terrible thing to have to take part in?

About this time, or just a little later, there were numbered of the nation 603,000 men 20 years of age and over that were able to be soldiers and go to war, and this indicated there were probably over three million men, women, and children total population. The killing of the three thousand is not so terrible when you consider that they perished instead of the three million, for God had told Moses: "Now therefore let Me alone, that My wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them and I will make of thee a great nation" -- God's anger bursting into flame and burning them up!

The object of this article is to present the facts, the setting, the context, concerning the question "Who is on The Lord's side?" which appears nowhere else in The Bible, we think, in just these words. We carelessly and glibly sing the song "Who is on The Lord's Side" and doubtless feel that means us because we have joined the Church and have not been put in jail, maybe because we did not get caught, not yet. About six weeks before Moses asked this question he stood with the others at the foot of Mt. Sinai: Picture in your own mind what they saw as recorded in Exodus 19:17, etc:

"And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp 'To meet with God' . . . and Mt. Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in a fire: and the smoke thereof ascended up as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice."

Out of this fearful and terrible scenery they heard the voice of God speak the Ten Commandments. "And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightning, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they removed and stood afar off. And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear, but let not God speak with us, lest we die." "And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake." -- Hebrews 12:21. After God finished speaking the Commandments to the people, He called Moses up into the Mount. There he spent forty days with God, receiving detailed laws concerning the peoples relations with one another, and to their God; and also instructions for building a tabernacle for God to come and abide with them; and then God gave him "The Ten Words" written on two tables of stone.

"The stones were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, written with the finger of God."

Beginning with the 32nd chapter it appears that Moses conference with God was interrupted, and He told Moses to go down and see about his people for they had quickly forgotten their experiences and promises at Sinai, had made a golden calf an idol and were worshipping it! It was then that the wrath and anger of God would have burst into flame and consumed all the three millions of them had not Moses stood in the breach and interceded for them, and as a result of Moses' mediation, they escaped with only three thousand being slain, instead of the three millions! When Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on the Lord's side? Let him come unto me! These were called upon to execute the vengeance of God!

If we consider ourselves as "being on The Lord's side" we would do well to consider our attitude towards the terribleness of sin and rebellion against God's Commandments. "The wages of sin is death, eternal death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus our Lord." When Moses saw the idolatry of the people, and how in their perverted worship they "sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play" -- this makes one think of things going on in many of our churches these days -- he became angry and threw down the two tables of stone on which the Commandments were written, and broke them. Later, God told him to cut out two stones and present them to God for a rewriting of The Commandments "with the finger of God." God now calls on you and me to present the tables of our heart to Him in order that The Spirit of God might write His Commandments upon them. Beware, take heed, if you are one who thinks and claims "Christ is in you" and yet there is not the desire to be obedient to every Commandment of God:

"Blessed are they that do His Commandments, that they may have a right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." Rev. 22:14. "Who is on The Lord's side?"

January 4, 1964