Beginning of the End - Ellen G. White

skill of learning can substitute for God's abiding presence.
Moses stood alone in the presence of the Eternal One, and he
was not afraid, for his soul was in harmony with his Maker. "If I
regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear" (Psalm 66:18).
But "the secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, and He will
show them His covenant" (Psalm 25:14).
The Deity proclaimed Himself, "The Lord, the Lord God,
merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness
and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and
transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty."
"Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth, and
worshiped." The Lord graciously promised to renew His favor to
Israel and to do marvels such as had not been done "in all the earth,
nor in any nation." During all this time, as at the first, Moses was
miraculously sustained. At God's command he had prepared two
tablets of stone and had taken them with him to the summit; and
again the Lord "wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the
Ten Commandments." (See Appendix, Note 4.)
Moses' face radiated with a dazzling light when he came down
from the mountain. Aaron as well as the people "were afraid to
come near him." Seeing their terror, he offered them the pledge of
God's reconciliation. They heard nothing in his voice but love and
appeal, and at last one man dared to approach him. Too awed to
speak, he silently pointed to the face of Moses and then toward
282