_SINAI AND CALVARY_
HEBREWS xii. 18-28.
We need not live at the foot of Mount Sinai. It is like living at the foot
of Mount Pelee, the home of awful eruption, and therefore the realm of
gloom and uncertainty and fear. We are not saved by law, neither indeed
can we be. Neither can law heal us after our transgressions and defeats.
The law has nothing for prodigal men but "blackness, and darkness, and
tempest." It has no sound but dreaded decree, no message but menace, no
look but a frown. Who will build his house at the foot of Mount Sinai?
"But ye are come unto Mount Zion." Our true home is not at Sinai, but at
Calvary. There is no place for the sinner at the first mount; at the
second mount there is a place for no one else. At Calvary we may find our
way back to the holiness we lost at Sinai. Through grace we may drop the
burden of our sin and begin to wear the garments of salvation. The way
back to heaven is by "the green hill, without a city wall." It is a mount
that can be reached by the most exhausted pilgrim; and the one who has
"spent all" will assuredly find a full restoration of life at the gate of
his Saviour's death. "Ye are come to Jesus, the mediator of the new
covenant."