Why Doesn’t God Just Come Down From Heaven?

“If God really exists, why doesn’t He just come down from heaven? Why doesn’t He come down to Earth and make Himself known? Why not come down in mighty power, with a thunderous voice, accompanied by miracles instead of making people believe in Him by faith?”

Well, my friend, that is just exactly what God did. In the days of Moses, the Almighty came down to Mt. Sinai with trumpets, with fire, with a thunderous voice, with a big black cloud of smoke, and the people were freaked out!

They said, “Moses, we can’t handle this. You go up to the mountain and listen to God and then come down and tell us what He said.”

So Moses did just as the people asked. He went up on the mountain and listened to God for 40 days and 40 nights

At that time God gave Him the rest of His laws. Inciently, there were some 300 commandments, not merely ten. The significance of the Ten Commandments is that they were the first ten and only ten God got through before the people stopped Him, and asked Moses to go up and listen to the others.

Now get this. You’re got to love this: When Moses returned with God’s law, the people had chosen to worship a golden calf. They rejected Moses, sounding not unlike many of today’s falsely religious:

“Now how do we know Moses really talked to God? Moses are you saying your view of God is better than our view of God?”

Moses replied, “This was your idea of having God communicate through spokesmen. And from now on, that is the way things will continue to be. God is going to send such spokemen on a regular basis They will be called prophets.”

That was a rough paraphrase, of course. Here are the actual words shared by Moses before he died in something not unlike a farwell, State of the Union address:

14 The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the Lord your God has not permitted you to do so. 15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. 16 For this is what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.”

17 The Lord said to me: “What they say is good. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. 19 I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name. 20 But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death” (Deuteronomy 18:14-20)

The good news is that under the New Covenant, although God will at times continue to send prophets, He now speaks to all of us directly through the subtle but significant, comforting voice of His Holy Spirit.

“This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit” (1 John 4:13 NIV).