Exodus 20:20  And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.
21  And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.

The New Evangelical crowd and the Emergent church crowd want to get away from absolutes. They want a religion that allows for man to rule and God to bow before man. They want a puppet God. They want to believe that the Ten Commandments are not important for us because God is love and Jesus came to lead in a different way.
Jesus answered this confusion in Matthew 5:

Matthew 5:17  Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

Jesus Christ is God. He embodies the Ten Commandments. Romans 10:4 tells us:

Romans 10:4  For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.

What Paul was told to write there is that law keeping has never been the way of righteousness. Isaiah 64:6 declares:

Isaiah 64:6  But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

Law keeping has never been the way to please God. The reason being that we cannot keep the law. No one has ever been able to keep the law of God perfectly. Jesus Christ came to this earth as a man and He did demonstrate that He is God by being without sin. He went to the cross and shed His sinless blood so that we can be forgiven and saved. Being saved does not abolish the law. It writes the law on the saved person’s heart. The saved person does not carry a list of the Ten Commandments around in his pocket. He does not memorize them and constantly check himself to see if he is keeping them. He has a new heart and the Holy Spirit indwelling him, guides him in his decisions and actions.
When the true child of God sins, it grieves his heart. He wants to glorify his heavenly Father. He wants to please his Saviour and Lord. It is foolishness to fight against holiness. No true child of God will do that for long. They might be deceived for a short time, but the indwelling Holy Spirit will show him that this is wrong.
In our text we see that Moses did not tell the people to ignore the holiness of God. He comforted them in the midst of the holiness of God. There is a godly fear that we need to have. There is a crippling fear that God does not want us to have. Those who refuse to know Him, will have that fear of Him. They will try to stay away from Him. They will be followers of the New Evangelicalism and the Emergent church philosophies because they are void of the true God. Accepting the lies of the ecumenical movement might make a person feel good now, but it will lead to a shocking reality at death.
Moses told the people that God came to that mount to prove the people. God knew the heart of every one of the Jews that were there that day. He was giving them an opportunity to see who they truly were. Most of them were not right with Him. Most of them did not want to follow Him. They needed to see the importance of submitting to the true God. Moses was chosen by God to help them to see the blessing they could know if they would submit to Him.
God takes no pleasure in the sins of man. He does not want man to sin. God does not force man to sin. Man is born a lost sinner and God provided the means for the Old Testament people to be be atoned for their sins through the animal sacrifices. Jesus Christ came to shed His blood and make it possible for the Old Testament saints to be forgiven and He also made it possible for New Testament people to be forgiven and saved.
In our text the people chose to stand afar off from God. That was their choice. God was not driving them away. The fact is that they could not dismiss the fact that with God in that mount, the mount was shaking. They could not dismiss the thundering and the lightning and the sound of the trumpet. God was there. They were not willing to be brought into fellowship with Him.
Moses drew near to God. He knew drawing nigh to God was the right thing to do. He knew enough about God to know that it was unwise to draw away from Him. He still wanted to argue with God at times, but He was not going to pull away from Him. He was learning the value of listening to God.
Today, most people, both Jew and Gentile, still do not want to know the true and holy God. They want an imaginary god who will agree to their sinful ways. False religion is far more popular than the truth. God does not force anyone to know Him. We still have His Word. We can still know Who He is. Believing deceivers might make a person feel good for now, but what about eternity? No one will convince God to accept their version of truth. He has given His Word. He has also preserved His Word. His Word is settled in heaven. His Word is also preserved on earth. A person can argue against that if they want, but trying to make God a liar is not a good thing. He does not lie. Rather than believing a lie, it is wise to submit to His Word and to follow Him in Truth.
That is the only way of blessing.
Pastor Bartel