Moses’ challenge rang out, “Who is on the Lord’s side?” After all the dramatic experiences of God’s power as they escaped from Egypt and witnessed the destruction of the Egyptian army, and then experienced the dramatic physical happenings at Sinai, the majority of the people still had not perceived the special and wonderful nature of the one true God they were privileged to know. They were becoming “His people”. He was asking them to have a relationship with Him, but the majority of them refused. When Moses was absent for 40 days they reverted to human thinking and looked for a physical representation of God, finding it more satisfying to worship a representation of something He had made rather than the Creator Himself.

Moses is mortified. He becomes distressed and breaks the stone tablets engraved by God when he was on the top of the mountain. He comes down and his challenge rings out, “Who is on the Lord’s side?” Wonderfully the Levites responded to the challenge and stood with Moses – yet, among them there arose the experience of being unable to serve God properly. The Lord says to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book” (verse 33).

This is the first time we learn that God has a book! There are references to God’s book in different parts of Scripture which climax near the end of the Bible when “the book of life” (Revelation 20:12) is opened and “if anyone’s name is not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire” (verse 15). This lake symbolizes the trashing of all those who have had the opportunity to be “on the Lord’s side”, but decide to serve themselves rather than God and His Son. Are you on the Lord’s side?