A Whole Lot of Shaking

00:01 Morning. It's good to be in the house of the Lord and trust that you feel that way as well. I would invite you to turn your attention this morning to the book of Hebrews. 00:12 We are winding down the book, but it is going to take us a bit yet because of so much content that is yet to be studied in there's so much yet to study in the book of Hebrews yet in chapter 13 that we're not going to rush through it but take our time. 00:29 But I would like to call your attention this morning to chapter 12:25-29, but I'm going to back up again into verse 18 and take a running start at it. 00:43 "For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire and to blackness and darkness and tempest and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words so that those who heard it begged that the words should not be spoken to them anymore. For they could not endure what was commanded, 01:03 and if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow. And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, 'I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.' But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, 01:24 to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. See that you do not refuse him who speaks. 01:43 For if they did not escape who refused him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from him who speaks from heaven. 01:53 Whose voice then shook the earth, but now he has promised, saying, 'Yet once more I shake not only the earth but also heaven.' Now this yet once more indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. 02:13 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire." In May 2021, 02:30 the US earthquake early warning system began to issue alerts to cell phone users in California, Oregon, and Washington. The MyShake app is an early warning system that aims to let people know about incoming shaking so that they can have at least a few seconds to find a safe spot to ride out the earthquake. 02:50 The alert system is successful because communication systems are now faster than the speed of shaking waves moving through the ground. The earthquake early warning system could also give residents in the Pacific Northwest as much as 80 seconds of warning ahead of a shaking from a magnitude 9 earthquake along the Cascadia zone. 03:14 These monstrous zones are places where earthquakes are prone to happen, and if you can have the difference of 80 seconds between the time you know about the earthquake and the time it actually hits, it could mean the difference between life and death. Well, we're here this morning to give a warning from the book of Hebrews that there is an earthquake coming. 03:34 There is an earthquake coming. There is a lot of shaking that's going to happen. There's a lot of shaking. I believe that's already happening and has begun and will continue. 03:43 For God has promised he promised in verse 26, saying, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also heaven." So we are being warned today that there is a shaking that is coming. 03:59 But we do not shake with the shaking as those who don't know the Lord shake with the shaking. We can have confidence. We can have lack of terror and be fully encouraged and secure in the Lord Jesus Christ. 04:19 And that's the message he wants us to know in verses 22 to 24, 04:24 that we have not come to a mountain like Moses did where there was thunderings and lightnings and shaking and all kinds of scary things and smoke and fire on top of that mountain. But we have come to Mount Zion, 04:44 to the city of the living God, not to earthly Jerusalem, which has been plagued with wars and fighting for many years. And in fact, even this past week, earthly Jerusalem was being threatened from within this time with civil unrest and civil wars. But we have come to the heavenly Jerusalem, 05:04 not to a group of angels that are ready to destroy the world, but to an innumerable company of angels who are ministering spirits to those who are the heirs of salvation. We read earlier in the book of Hebrews to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven and to God the Judge of all, 05:24 to the spirits of just men, and to Jesus the mediator. And you get a different feel from where we are in the new covenant, in the New Testament, than what they had in the old covenant at that mountain of Mount Sinai where there was smoke and fire and all kinds of terrorizing things happening. 05:43 But what we have here in verse 25 through 21 is a question that lies before us. Is the God of the Old Testament still the same God as we have in the New Testament? Is he still the same character? 06:03 Now we come to Christ and our fears are taken away and the terror is taken away. The fear of death is taken away. But is this the same God or is this God 2.0? And so we have to answer that this morning because there are those who look at the Old Testament and say, 06:22 "Well, that's got to be a different God. That's God 1.0. We've got God 2.0 and it's actually a different God. We don't believe in the wrath of God anymore and we don't have to be afraid of God anymore. 06:34 And God is like a dad who raised his kids severely becoming a grandpa who overlooks a lot of stuff." Yeah. Is the God we're serving today grandpa or is he the same God that we have served even in the Old Testament? 06:57 And so he says, "See that you do not refuse him who speaks. Do not refuse the God who speaks through Jesus Christ. 07:08 Because if they did not escape who refused him who spoke on earth" that's the Old Testament God speaking through Moses and those who refused to listen were met with punishment and devastation. 07:25 "Much more shall we not escape if we turn away from him who speaks not from earth but from heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ." God in the Old Testament speaking through Moses and there were dire consequences for refusing the message that God spoke through Moses. 07:46 Now God has now spoken through his Son as we saw in Hebrews 1:1. You remember that? God has now spoken to us in his Son whom he has appointed heir of all things by whom also he made the worlds and is the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person. 08:02 God who has spoken to us through Christ, so much more will there be judgment for those who refuse to listen to God in Christ. Now so we have to do a little historical study here. And so I want you to go back with me to the book of Exodus. 08:20 We're going to look at Exodus and see what happened with this God of the Old Testament, this God of the Old Testament. So look with me in Exodus chapter 19. And this is right before the giving of the law, the Ten Commandments. And God is calling Israel into a relationship with himself at Mount Sinai. 08:41 And they came to the mountain and there were several trips up and down that mountain that Moses made. First one, he went up and he said, "Now go down and get the people ready to meet me." And so they did. 08:53 And in verse 12, they said, "You shall set bounds for the people all around saying, 'Take heed to yourselves that you do not go up to the mountain and touch its base. Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death.'" So there's a distance. There's a separation between God and the people. 09:10 There's a holy God who is interacting now with sinful people and there's that separation. And so in verse 16, it came to pass on the third day in the morning that there were thunderings and lightnings and thick clouds on the heaven and the sound of the trumpet was very loud so that the people who were in the camp trembled. 09:30 This is fearful, terrible, terrorizing encounter. Verse 18, "Mount Sinai was completely in smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of the furnace and the whole mountain quaked greatly and there was a blast of the trumpet. 09:51 Sounded long and became louder and louder. And Moses spoke and God answered him by voice. And in verse 21, the Lord said to Moses, 'Go down and warn these people. Go warn them that thus they break through this barrier.' Moses said, 'Well, God, there's a barrier there. We've already told him.' No, 10:10 he said, 'Away.' Verse 24, 'Get down and then come up, you and Aaron with you. But do not let the priests and the people break through to come up to the Lord lest he break out against them.'" And so we have a terrorizing situation here at Mount Sinai. In chapter 20, 10:29 he then gives Moses the Ten Commandments and the law. In chapter 20, verse 18 to 21, "All the people witnessed the thundering, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking. And when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. And then they said to Moses, 10:49 'You speak with us and we will hear. But let not God speak with us lest we die.'" And so they're saying, "We are scared to death and we don't want this God to speak to us directly. 11:02 We want you to speak to we want him to speak to us through you, Moses." And so Moses becomes the spokesperson for the voice of God because the people are deeply afraid. Verse 21, "So the people stood afar off. 11:16 But Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was." So this is all background for us understanding the book of Hebrews in our text this morning. Then you go over to chapter 24, chapter 24, verses 9 through 18. We won't read all these. "But Moses went up also with Aaron, 11:36 Nadab, and Abihu and the 70 elders of Israel and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone and it was like the very heavens in its clarity. 11:49 And then the Lord said to Moses, 'Come up to me on the mountain and be there and I will give you tablets of stone and I will give the law and the commandments which I have written that you may teach them.'" And so verse 15, 12:05 "Then Moses went up into the mountain and a cloud covered the mountain and the glory of the Lord rested upon Mount Sinai and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day, he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud and the sight of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire." Remember that phrase, a consuming fire. 12:25 We read that already from Hebrews chapter 12, verse 29. Our God is a consuming fire on the top of the mountain and in the eyes of the children of Israel. Now we know what happened in this setting is that the people after 40 days and 40 nights began to despair of Moses. 12:44 They said, "Moses must be a goner because God must have killed him up there because we haven't seen a hide nor hair out of him for this 40 days." And so they began to riot and to revel and to worship idols. And you know the whole golden calf story where they said to Aaron, "Make a calf for us. 13:06 Make an idol for us. 13:07 Give us the God who called us out of Egypt and let us worship something that we can see." And then God, you know, remember God sent Moses back down the mountain and he said, "You need to get back down there and take care of these people because there is idolatry in the camp." And the Lord said in chapter 32, 13:29 verse 9, "The Lord said to Moses, 'I have seen this people. Indeed, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them and I will make of you a great nation.'" And then Moses pleaded with the Lord God. He pleaded with him. He interceded with him on behalf of the people. 13:49 Verse 14, "So the Lord relented from the harm which he said he would do to the people." But that wasn't the whole story. In chapter 32, verses 27 and 28, he said, "Moses saying to the people after he is dealing discipline out to them, 'Thus says the Lord God, 14:10 let every man put his sword on his side.'" This is he called the Levites to himself. "And those who were on God's side called him to himself and said, 'Let every man put his sword on his side and go in and out of the entrance throughout the camp and let every man kill his brother, every man his companion, every man his neighbor.' So the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. 14:31 And there were about 3,000 men of the people fell that day, 3,000 people killed. Why? Because they failed to continue to approach God in the proper way. Now we go over to chapter Numbers, verse 16. And we find also another time when the earth shook. 14:52 Numbers chapter 16 is the account when Nadab, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram challenged Moses. And God came to them to set the record straight that God had called Moses and Aaron in a special way that he had not called the others. 15:10 And in verse 30 of chapter 16 of Numbers, "The Lord creates a new thing. The earth opens its mouth and swallows them up all that belongs to them and they go down alive into the pit. Then you will understand that these men have rejected the Lord." And now it came to pass, verse 31, "As he finished speaking all these words, 15:29 that the ground split apart under them and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up and their households and all the men of Korah with all their goods. So they and all those that went down alive into the pit, the earth closed over them and they perished from among the assembly." I suppose there was some shaking going on. 15:48 And as a judgment for rejecting him who spoke by God on earth. And that wasn't all then that happened. Fire came out and consumed the 250 men that were sympathetic with Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. 16:07 And then Moses said after they complained the next day that Moses was killing the people of the Lord, he said, "Moses, we're still unhappy with you because you're killing people around here." And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, "Get away from among this congregation that I may consume them in a moment." And they fell on their faces and the plague broke out. 16:27 And end of verse 46, "And Aaron took it as Moses commanded and ran in the midst of the assembly. And already the plague had begun among the people. So he put the incense and made atonement for the people and he stood between the dead and the living so the plague was stopped. 16:42 Now those who died in the plague were 14,700 besides the men who died in the Korah incident." And so there's some shaking going on. 16:53 When they in the Old Testament refused to hear the God who spoke through Moses on earth, how much more will we not escape if we refuse to hear God who spoke through his Son Jesus Christ? That's the point of what is happening here in this text. 17:16 "If they did not escape who refused him who spoke on earth, 17:19 much more shall we not escape if we turn away from him who speaks from heaven." Then he tells us that God has promised that there's going to be more shaking. 17:37 What we're experiencing here today in the age of grace, in the church age, is the delay of punishment for sin. 17:50 We are living in the time where people sin and they sin regularly and they sin dreadfully and the punishment is many times delayed. The Old Testament, it was swift. It was sure. It was terrible and it was sudden. And the point was made. 18:09 In this age of grace, God is giving people time and space to repent. But let us not assume that because of his mercy and grace in this time period, let us not assume that that means that God has any different opinion about sin than what he had. 18:31 Amen? Now you have not come to that mount on Mount Sinai. But don't forget that this is the same God. This is not Grandpa God who raised his children severely. And now when the grandchildren come over, we're just going to have a good time. 18:54 No. This is the same God. Deuteronomy 4:24 says, "For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God." We read about it in Exodus and it's right here in verse 29, "For our God is a consuming fire." You could say that our God is still a consuming fire. 19:15 Now Jesus speaks from heaven who isn't going to just shake the earth but also the heavens. And I believe that in the end of time and as we approach the end of time, we're going to see more and more things being shaken. There are things being shaken today that we thought were stable. 19:37 There are traditions being shaken. There are cultures being shaken. There are religions being shaken. Things are happening, for instance, in the Catholic Church that have never happened before. Things are happening in the American government that have never happened before. We had this weekend a former president who was indicted. 19:56 It's never happened in the history of the United States of America. That doesn't mean that these things haven't happened in the past in other cultures and so on. But things are being shaken. Even the experts who watch social trends and cultural trends are telling us that things are happening around us that have never, 20:17 ever happened before. Never has there been such rapid change on the social and economic scene as what we have seen in the last 20 years happen before that in millennia of history. There are things being shaken. There are things that are going to be shaken. Politics is being shaken. 20:37 Human governments are being shaken. Economies are being shaken. Religions are being shaken. Customs and traditions are being shaken. Cultures are being shaken. Earthly values and temporal values are being shaken. And everything you can see is being shaken or will be shaken. 20:56 That's what he says here in verse 27 and 26. "Everything that can be shaken will be shaken. Brothers and sisters, it behooves us not to put our confidence in the structures and systems around us. 21:11 It behooves us to put our confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ and his heavenly kingdom because that's the only thing that cannot be shaken. The only thing that will remain that cannot be shaken is the kingdom of God. 21:32 The whole entire universe is going to be shaken. And the elements, the Bible says in Second Peter, will melt with fervent heat and be dissolved and come unglued, as it were. 21:46 But the kingdom of God and the children of the kingdom are secure because of their relationship with the King." I want you to look at a couple of scriptures with me. Go to verse 21 of chapter 21 of Luke. Chapter 21 of Luke. 22:06 By the way, this is the emergency earthquake warning system, the emergency earthquake warning system. 22:16 Luke 21, verse 11, "And there will be great earthquakes in various places and famines and pestilences and there will be fearful sights and great signs from heaven. But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons. 22:37 You will be brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake." We're going to go on down to verse 25. "And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars and on the earth, distress of nations with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring. 22:57 Men's hearts failing them from fear. And the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth for the powers of the heavens will be shaken." There you have it from the very lips of Jesus. "The powers of the heavens shall be shaken. 23:16 Then they will see the Son of Man coming in the cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads because your redemption draws near. So you also," verse 31, "when you see these things happening, 23:35 know that the kingdom of God is near, that unshakable kingdom." Now you contrast that. And if we had more time, we're not going to take the time this morning to look much in the book of Revelation. But you could take in contrast the destruction of Babylon. I just want you to look just briefly at Revelation 18, 23:58 the destruction of Babylon, the world system, the world system. "After these things, I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority in the earth, was illuminated with his glory. And he cried mightily with a loud voice saying, 'Babylon the Great is fallen, is fallen and has become a dwelling place of demons, 24:18 a prison for every foul spirit and a cage for every unclean and hated bird.'" And in verse 7 through 9, "In the measure that she glorified herself and lived luxuriously in the same measure, give her torment and sorrow. 24:35 For she says in her heart, 'I sit as a queen and am no widow and will not see sorrow.' Therefore, her plagues will come in one day, death and mourning and famine. And she will be utterly burned with fire for strong is the Lord who judges her. 24:51 And the kings of the earth who committed fornication and lived luxuriously with her will weep and lament for her when they see the smoke of her burning." And you can look at what happens to Babylon, the world system at the end of time. But go over to chapter 21, verse 10 of Revelation. 25:13 "And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. 25:27 Her light was like the most precious stone, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal." And he goes on to describe the glory of the of the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven as an expression of the unshakable kingdom of God. 25:49 There's two systems and one God, two systems and one God. And so what we have here in our text this morning can be wrapped up in verse 28. "Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, the new Jerusalem, 26:08 the heavenly Jerusalem, not Mount Sinai anymore but the heavenly Jerusalem, let us have grace." Some translate that word grace as gratitude. It can be translated either way. "Let us have gratitude. Let us be grateful for an unshakable kingdom. 26:28 And let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, reverence and godly fear." The Old Testament, there was fear sprinkled with love. In the New Testament, 26:49 there is love still sprinkled with fear. And so he says, "Let us serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear." Now I did a little study this week, this morning, and yesterday, this weekend about the fear of the Lord. 27:10 Is the fear of the Lord a New Testament concept? It's all the way through the Old Testament, especially the book of Proverbs and so on. "Fear God, fear God, fear God, fear God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge. We should walk in the fear of the Lord." But is that a New Testament concept? What about us that are in Christ? 27:31 Do we still need to fear God? "What sayest thou?" Well, there are scriptures that Jesus gave us. "Fear not him that kills the body, but fear him who, after he has killed the body, can cast both body and soul into hell." That's telling us to fear God. 27:54 What kind of fear are we to have for God? If you look back in our study in Hebrews to chapter 4, verse 1, "Therefore, since a promise remains of entering his rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to come short of it." Now some people say that reverence or that fear in the New Testament means reverence and awe. 28:15 Well, let us fear. Let us reverence lest any of you seem to come short of it. No. Let us fear. Let us be afraid of falling from grace and refusing the gospel. Not in a... Well, I'll get to that in a moment. In chapter 10, verse 27 and 31, 28:36 we've been there as well. Hebrews 10:27, "If we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation which will devour the enemies or the adversaries." And verse 31, 28:55 "It is a fearful thing to fall in the hands of the living God." And what I just want to wrap this up this morning by saying this. There are two types of fear in the New Testament. 29:07 There is the fear that is a terror like this, a fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation to devour the adversaries. And then there is a reverential fear and awe. A reverential fear is, 29:27 Vine says, "A wholesome dread of displeasing him, a fear which banishes the terror that shrinks from his presence." This is a holy awe and deep reverence, deep reverence. 29:47 There are a few things today in America that we really reverence. And there are a few things in America that we really fear, that we stand in awe of. 29:59 What Hebrews 12 here is saying is that we are to serve God acceptably with deep reverence and awe. Those of us that are in Christ, those who are not in Christ should feel terror. That's the difference. 30:19 What do you do with the gospel? Those who reject the gospel and reject him who spoke from heaven through Jesus and refuse him and reject him are to be terrorized. But those of us who have received the gospel and who live in Jesus Christ, 30:40 and he lives in us and have had our sins forgiven, need no longer be terrorized of God. But we do need to have that continuing deep reverence and solemn awe about God. You know, really, there's few things anymore that really make us awe-struck. 31:00 We see things all the time that are magnificent. And fewer and fewer and fewer things make us just really stand back and awe. And fewer and fewer things make us really fall down in reverence. But for those of us that are Christians who have our sins covered by the blood, 31:21 we don't fear in terror, but we do fear in reverence and godliness. That's our call because our God is still a consuming fire. 31:42 And if we reject him who spoke from heaven, we will be in no better shape in the end than those who rejected God speaking on earth. 31:55 Those of us who receive the gospel, we are the ones who come to Mount Zion, the city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, the innumerable company of angels, the spirits of just men made perfect, and Jesus, 32:14 the mediator of the new covenant who has sprinkled us with his blood and washed us in his blood of every sin and reconciled us to God. And so this morning, when we think about coming to communion, we do not do so with terror. 32:34 We don't need to do it with terror. But we do do it with a reverential, deep reverence for God and the things of God with holy awe and godly fear. 32:52 We never want to get to the place where we take for granted the things of God and where they become commonplace to us. But we never want to stay at the place either where we're so afraid of making a miss move with God that we can't function. 33:11 Both ditches are wrong. But we have a God who's a consuming fire. And if we are in Christ, walking in the light, walking in fellowship with him, we need not be terrorized by that consuming fire. 33:32 Let's pray. Dear Father, I thank you this morning for the clarity of our text. And I pray, dear God, that you will quiet the hearts of those who are tended toward fear, whose sins are forgiven. 33:52 They know of nothing between them and the Savior. But their disposition is one of fear. Lord, let us minister faith and grace and confidence in the blood of Jesus Christ. 34:12 We thank you, Lord, for that blood. We thank you for that confidence that we can stand in the presence of God forgiven and cleansed. 34:23 But for those, Lord, who may be here this morning who tend toward irreverence and lack of awe and frivolity toward the things of God, and who tend to be careless with the things of God, 34:44 even to the point of rejecting him who speaks for God, may that fear and reverence and deep-seated holy fear grip them and bring them to repentance. 35:06 Wherever we are, Lord, today, would you give us exactly what our heart needs? In Jesus' name. Amen.