Logic alone has no power. Science has proved without a doubt that a definite link exists between smoking and lung cancer. Highway statistics continue to show that drinking and driving is extremely hazardous, not only to your health, but to the health of those around you. Sniffing glue and cocaine, swallowing “uppers” or LSD, ingesting PCP or “angel dust” have all been proved to destroy the brain and threaten life.

Yet a major portion of the American public, continue to use cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs. In spite of consumer reports proving time and time again that “junk food” has little nutritional value, the fast-food industry is one of the fastest growing around. We have proved that air pollution and water pollution threaten the very life of future generations. But we keep on using and abusing the things that cause pollution.

In spite of AIDS and other social diseases, millions still practice sexual promiscuity. Knowledge is not virtue. Information is not overcoming. Facts cannot provide freedom. There is no power in logic.

When God gave His law amid the thunderings of Mount Sinai, the people of Israel were convinced of its logic and reason.

“All the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.” Exodus 19:8.

They were admitting that the law was just, but they had yet to learn its proper function. They had yet to learn by hard experience the truth expressed in the writings to our church,

“As you look into the Lord’s great moral looking glass, His holy law, His standard of character, do not for a moment suppose that it call cleanse you.” – Ellen G. White Comments, S.D.A. Bible Commentary vol. 6, p. 1070.

What was God’s response to the people of Israel? You can read it in Deuteronomy 5:28-30.

“The Lord heard the voice of your words, when ye spake unto me; and the Lord said unto me, I have heard the voice of the words of this people, which they have spoken unto thee: they have well said all that they have spoken.”

It was good that they realized that God’s law was worthwhile. But it was not enough. The Lord continued,

“o that there were such a heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever!”

You can almost hear the tears in His voice as He says it. For the Lord knew something that the people of Israel had yet to learn by hard experience. He knew there was no power in logic. He knew that no one could obey the law in his own strength. But He could not explain their error to them in words they would understand and accept. He could only let them learn the hard way. You can almost hear Him sigh and see Him shake His head, and He concludes in verse 30,

“Go say to them, Get you into your tents again.”

School was dismissed for that day! Until life itself taught them their need, all God could say to them was, “Go to your tents!”

Many parents have wondered at their erring children. Time and time again they have said, “But they know what is right.” And the children probably do know. Our human dilemma is that knowledge is not enough. Not only do we need to know what is right, we also need to know how to do the right we know. And there’s where the problem so often comes in.

God has seen our perplexity and understands our helpless condition. In His great love, He did not stop with Mount Sinai. He provides another mountain, Mount Calvary. Through accepting the righteousness of Christ in our behalf, through a continued relationship with Him, He gives us that which the people of Israel lacked–the law of God written in our hearts. Jesus can give us what the law can never give–power for obedience, pardon for sin, grace for our every need.