We'll turn back to Hebrews chapter
12. Hebrews chapter 12. And I want
to focus on the last few verses, 25 down to 29 with you this morning. And I've called this message,
An Unshakable Kingdom. An Unshakable Kingdom. Now, we're
getting towards the end of Hebrews, but I don't want you to lose
sight of what it is that Paul has been showing us in the chapters
that have gone before us. Paul has shown these Hebrew believers,
and you and me if we believe, how blessed of God we are in
the grace of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Think of the
blessings that we have in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We have the promise of eternal life. We have the fellowship
of God. To walk through this life with
the fellowship of the God of the universe. Wow, that's, that
takes some, you can chew over that and never ever get tired
of it, can you? The fellowship of God, the fellowship
of God's people. You know, there's human friendship,
yes, and it can be very strong, but the fellowship of God's people.
This is, this is, This is kinship. This is brotherhood that is far
stronger than any genetic ties of family. Far stronger. We have the fellowship of God
and his people. We have, as we saw in last week's message, in
those verses 22 down to 24, we have the fellowship of angels.
Angels. Fellowship of angels as we walk
through this life. We have the fellowship of glorified
saints. who have lived the life of faith
and been taken to glory and gone before us and are there in heaven
now. And we have liberty in Christ.
what liberty we have in Christ. Not what license we have, what
liberty we have in Christ. In the fulfillment of all the
legal types and stipulations of the Old Testament. We have
all these things if you believe. As Peter says, if so be ye have
tasted that the Lord is gracious. Have you tasted that the Lord
is gracious? Great blessings. Tremendous blessings. And he's been showing us, now
that he's got to the end, that everybody that ever went before
all knew God and were blessed in the same way in the Gospel
of Christ. Chapter 11. All of them. This
great cloud of witnesses. And we're not there yet, and
he says you'll have chastisements, but don't despair in the chastisements. It's but for a time and it's
but for your good. God knows. He's a loving Heavenly Father.
And you're not, think where you've come to, you're not come to that
terrible, terrible Mount Sinai and its law and all of those
things, you've come to Mount Zion. Keep going, that was the
message last week, keep going. And then he says in verse 25,
see that ye refuse not him that speaketh. See, there's an implied
therefore. Because of all these things,
make sure that you refuse not him that speaketh. Put effort
into it. Put effort into not refusing
Him, God, that speaks. He has spoken to you and He does
speak to you. Believe His word. Trust His truth. Rely on His promises. Don't be
like the warning that Paul gives in Hebrews 3 and verse 12. Take
heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of
unbelief in departing from the living God. So I've got four
points this morning. First of all is heed the warnings
from the past. Secondly, don't cling to that
which is shakable. There's a shakable order of things. Don't cling to it. And then the
third point, the unshakable, which is the kingdom of God,
is to be received. And then fourthly, grace is to
be held fast for fruitful service. Four things then. Firstly, heed
the warnings from the past. Heed the warnings from the past.
See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. Four, if they escape
not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not
we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven.
God has spoken. And there are serious consequences
for those who ignore his voice. You know, we've been thinking
of this in recent times. I'll remind you again of that
verse in Psalm 138 and the second verse. God has magnified his
word above all his name. This book is not to be taken
lightly. As we saw in the Isaiah study,
this is something the true people of God tremble at this word.
We treat it with the utmost respect. We treat it as to be taken as
the clear directive for our lives in all things. It is utterly
prescriptive for us in everything that we believe, in everything
that we do, in the people we are to be, in the way we are
to react, in all situations. God has magnified his word above
all his name. This is so important. We must
tremble at it in the sense that we give it the greatest respect. And when God speaks, We do well
to take heed, and we're so foolish, so foolish if we don't do that
which God has said, if we ignore it, if we don't listen. Think
about the past. God spoke in Noah's day. How did God speak? For many,
many years, as Noah preached, he was a preacher of righteousness.
He was preaching the righteousness of God. He was preaching how
God makes sinners righteous. And he was showing that judgment
for sin was coming, and would definitely come, in a very physical
and real way. And that there was only one way
of escape, and that was in the one ark that was provided for
the salvation of people in that day. But they didn't take heed. they all carried on as if nothing
was going to happen just as people do today all around us people
just carry on as if it makes no difference at all but just
as God spoke in Noah's day and Noah was a preacher of righteousness
for all those years that the ark was being built Just as that
happened, all those people ignored. They carried on marrying and
giving in marriage and living as if they were going to go on
forever. And then in one day, God shut his people in that ark. God shut his people. Just Noah
and his immediate family. Three sons and their wives, and
his own wife. Eight of them in all, we read.
He shut them in. And all the rest, he swept them
all away in judgment. They didn't heed what God had
said. And as it was in Noah's day,
Peter tells us, so it will be when the Son of Man comes again.
Think of Sodom. Think of that city of such evil
and such corruption. And God was coming down to rain
down judgment upon their sin and upon their rejection of his
rule and of his law. Abraham's nephew, Lot, was there,
and his family. And the message went to them
all, get out now while you can. The word of the Lord came, get
out now while you can, because judgment is coming, and terrible
things will happen, and you will be swept away in the judgment
of God. And most of Lot's family ignored. But just he and his
wife and a couple of daughters were all that escaped. But the
rest, other sons and daughters, daughters-in-law, they all stayed
there. And even Lot's wife, on the way
out some distance away, when told in God's word not to look
back, she looked back. And you know what happened to
her? She was turned to a pillar of salt. She didn't heed the
word that was spoken. And how serious were the consequences. And then at Sinai, God spoke
on earth. This is what it refers to in
verse 25. For if they escape not who refused
him that spake on earth. This is the speaking on earth
that is being talked about. It's about God giving his law.
Exodus chapter 19 on Sinai. On earth by Moses. God spoke
there. And any who stepped outside of
what God had stipulated, the consequences were serious. The consequences were dreadful
for stepping outside of that. And we think how terrible those
consequences were, how sudden and brutal. It's just a picture. It's a reality, but it's a picture
of that which will happen in eternity to all who reject Christ,
who are outside of Him. To Israel in all of their wilderness
wanderings, God spoke by Moses. He spoke on earth by Moses. And
many didn't take heed, and they died of serpent bites. In one
case, the earth opened up and swallowed the sons of Korah for
offering strange fire, for coming in a way that didn't take heed
to God's word. And then throughout the Old Testament,
again and again, God gave warnings by the prophets about idolatry,
about false religion, about going after false gods, and the captivity
and the total subjugation of that people that would result
from their taking no heed of what God said. And what did they
do? Many refused. Many refused to hear, and they
were swept away in captivity. The northern kingdoms, the ten
northern tribes of Israel were swept away in Assyrian captivity. Judah was carried away in Babylonian
captivity. They completely lost their kingdom
status, their own nation sovereignty, because they refused to hear.
Many refused to hear him, and they perished. This is what it
says. If they escaped not who refused
him that spake on earth, how much more shall not we escape
if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven? Now Christ. We're in a New Testament age.
Christ has spoken from heaven. Christ has come down. John 3
verses 12 and 13, Jesus said to Nicodemus, if I have told
you earthly things and you believe not, How shall you believe if
I tell you of heavenly things? And what he was effectively saying
in the next verse was I the son of man came down from heaven
to tell you heavenly things. Ought we not to listen to him?
Ought we not to take heed of what he has said? He has spoken
from heaven. He has come down from heaven
and spoken from heaven. Ought we not to take heed? And
what has he spoken? What has our Lord Jesus Christ
come and spoken? The kingdom of God. The grace
of God in the gospel of God. And how shall we escape, says
Hebrews 2 verse 3, if we neglect so great salvation? How shall
we escape? There is no other escape. It's
like being in Noah's day and deliberately shutting yourself
out of the ark. that Noah had built, of saying,
I want nothing to do with that ark. I'll be okay. I'll swim
in my own strength in that day. And in that day, being completely
swept away. We need to heed the warnings
from the past, because they're there for our learning. They're
there. The scripture is full of encouragement
that we might not despair, but also warnings that we might not
presume. Let us take heed. See that ye
refuse not him that speaketh. Us, believers, see that ye refuse
not him that speaketh. For if they escape not who refused
him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape if we
turn away from him that speaketh from heaven. And then secondly,
don't cling to that which is shakable. That which is shakable
is Sinai. and the covenant of law, and
the giving of all of that mosaic law, and that system, and that
temple worship, and that priesthood, and all of those things. That's
what's shakable. Sinai is what is shakable. Psalm
68 verse 8 says this, the earth shook the heavens also dropped
at the presence of God. Even Sinai itself was moved at
the presence of God, the God of Israel. This was the inauguration
of the Mosaic law and all of the things that it pictured and
stood for, we've already seen that it was a blueprint, it was
a pattern, it was a type, it was a design of what the gospel
was intended to do. But it was given in a way that
caused fear and trembling. You know, I mean Moses was the
friend of God who spoke with God, but look at verse 21. And
so terrible was the sight that Moses said, I exceedingly fear
and quake. Moses, the one who stood with
God, who saw the glory of God, Exodus 33. Moses, this one, said,
I exceedingly fear and quake. So terrible was the sight. The
earth shook. The smoke went up from Sinai.
It was a, you know, modern man would say, ah, this is just a
medieval myth and legend that's trying to frighten you. Yes,
fine. You be in a part of the world
that's prone to earthquakes on the day that an earthquake comes.
And then we'll see where your bravery, your bravado, your confidence
is. In a moment, it will be taken
away. If this room started to move now, I tell you, we'd all,
in terror, be diving for cover. And that happens in the world
all the time as earthquakes come. You imagine living in Japan.
and the moment you feel that earth tremble, as it so often
does, what must go through their minds there? Tsunami. An earthquake
under the sea. Another great big wave is going
to come crashing in. That which seems so solid is
actually so shakable. This shakableness, it implies
earthquakes. Things seem solid but they become
so fragile in a moment that tsunamis and the earthquakes come and
they make things that seem so solid and so lasting and so dependable
seem so pathetic and so fragile and so easily broken and likewise
the things that people trust in their lives the health that
they trust in don't we all? Even us that are believers, you
know, we like the idea of good health. We shrink and fear ill
health, real ill health. We love our property. We love
it. We cling to it. We get great
comfort from it. Our family, all of these things.
We think that they're certain, but they're not. They're so shakable. For ill health can come in a
moment. You know, I think all of us know in some measure people
who've seemed fine and then in a matter of weeks you can go
from diagnosis to death in no time at all. have surrounded themselves with
all the good of this world in terms of property, and in a moment
it becomes worthless and taken away. And family likewise. Think
of Job, the servant of God, who had all of these things, yet
in a moment they were all taken away from him. and we can extend
that into spiritual things that people rely on as being absolutely
solid and dependable. Those things that are the result
not of God-given faith but of natural faith, that religious
faith that is in the heart of all men and women. to some extent. Those things in which they trust,
the spiritual things in which they trust, the churches, the
religions, the faiths in which they trust, all of these things
become so fragile in a moment because they're all shakable.
They're shakable. Look what it says in verse 26.
God shakes these things. He shakes these things that we think are
so dependable. In Job chapter 8, verses 14 and
15, I think it's Bildad that says this. You know, he's one
of the comforters of Job. they came up with many things,
and many of the things that they came out with were good counsel,
and they're in the inspired Word of God. He says this, So are
the paths of all that forget God, and the hypocrite's hope
shall perish. See, he thought it was dependable,
unshakable, but it proved to be completely shakable. Whose
hope shall be cut off, whose trust shall be a spider's web,
it will just tangle him up. He shall lean upon his house,
but it shall not stand. He shall hold it fast, but it
shall not endure. What he's referring to is that
which the Hebrews were trusting in as being unshakable. They
were tempted to go back to the Old Testament temple and its
worship. This is why the epistle was written,
to show how Christ is fulfilled and is so much better than all
of those things. They were tempted to go back
to it. Haggai chapter 2, turn back there, we read it just before,
because he's quoting Haggai chapter 2 and remember I told you where
it is it's between Zephaniah and Zechariah and verse 6 of chapter 2 of Haggai
for thus saith the Lord of hosts Yet once, it is a little while,
and I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and
the dry land, and I will shake all nations, and the desire of
all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory, saith
the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold
is mine, saith the Lord of hosts. the glory of this latter house
shall be greater than the former, saith the Lord of Hosts, and
in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of Hosts. The
first, Haggai was written in the days of the return from the
Babylonian captivity. The first temple, Solomon's temple,
had been utterly destroyed. There was just nothing of it
left standing. And they'd gone back at the command of Cyrus
to rebuild. And they'd gone back to rebuild
the temple, read the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, and you'll
see the rebuilding there. But this prophet wrote in that
time, and he says, does anybody remember the first temple? what
a glorious temple Solomon's temple was. No, obviously none of them.
They'd all died out but remembered it. None of them did. And this
house that you're looking at now, you're probably looking
and thinking Verse three, who is left among
you that saw this house in her first glory? And how do you see
it now? Is it not in your eyes in comparison
of it as nothing? This new temple that we've built
in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, it's nothing compared with that
glorious temple of Solomon. But all things are gonna be shaken. And he says in verse seven, the
desire of all nations shall come. This is speaking of Christ who
will come. And I will fill this house with
glory. This house, the new one, the
second one, that doesn't look very glorious today, what glory
would it be filled with? The glory of the only begotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth when he walked this
earth, would stand in that house. The silver is mine. The glory
of this latter house shall be greater than the former. And
of course it's looking beyond the actual physical temple and
Christ walking there to the temple of the living God, which is his
church, which is his people, which is Christ in the midst
of it. The things that were mere representations were to be shaken. They were to be taken away. That
second temple and all the religion that went with it was to be taken
away. It would be... taken away absolutely, even the
heaven of it, we read, the heaven of it would be taken away in
Haggai. The heaven of it, what's that,
the holiest of all in the temple, in the inner sanctum, the holiest,
would be shaken at the cross of Calvary when that temple veil
would be torn from the top to the bottom. And then, just a
few years after the epistle to the Hebrews was written, it would
be utterly destroyed again by Rome, and it's never been rebuilt
to this day, 2,000 years almost later. It's never been rebuilt,
because God said it wouldn't be. God said he would put an
end to all that sacrifice, that animal sacrifice, and it did.
There's only one place that Jews can offer an acceptable animal
sacrifice. And that's in the temple in Jerusalem.
And it hasn't existed from A.D. 70 to today. That's why there
are no animal sacrifices in the Jewish religion anymore. The
only acceptable one is in the temple in Jerusalem. And there
is no temple in Jerusalem. It's just not there. It's been
shaken. It's gone. It's been taken away. It's that which is shakable.
So don't cling to it, he says to the Hebrews. Now let's bring
it up to date. The same applies to all religion
today, which seeks in any way whatsoever to mimic that temple
and that priesthood. And let's extend it. I'm not
just talking about the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church,
however many degrees of highness or not you might want to make. I'm not talking, you know, don't
think that there's acceptable Anglicanism. Oh, it's alright,
you know, I think some of us have come across this, you know,
where somebody is the vicar of the Anglican church continuing
in different places, I think that's what they call it. Sorry,
it's Anglicanism, and it's an attempt, it's an attempt to go
back to that which has been shaken and taken away, completely taken
away. It's an attempt to mimic it,
and it's a very poor attempt to mimic it. Oh, we may have
some great architecture, but it doesn't mimic it anything
like what it was meant to be, and there's no place for it,
for God has shaken it and taken it away. And let's go beyond
those religions to anything which is based on a legal relationship
with God. Because there is so much that
claims to be the truth of God, and proclaim the truth of God,
that is based on a legal relationship with God. What do I mean? How
many say that the law is the believer's rule of life? a legal
relationship with God, that what you do is determined and directed
by the law of God. How shakable is that? It's based
on what men do. It's that which is built with
hands. It's temporal. It's not eternal. Because in
place of that, this is what he's saying to them, that which you're
seeking to go back to is shakable and is gone. When he wrote it
in these days, it was in the process of going. It would soon
be gone completely. It is gone for us. It is gone. And the unshakable is to be received. Look at verse 27. And this word
yet once more signifieth the removing of those things that
are shaken, that Old Testament form of worship, and anything
which pretends to mimic it in our day, as of things that are
made with human hands, that those things which cannot be shaken
may remain. those things which cannot be
shaken may remain. Wherefore, we, receiving a kingdom
which cannot be moved, and that word moved should have been translated
shaken, because it's exactly the same word that was translated
shaken in the verse before. Those things which cannot be
shaken may remain. Wherefore, we, receiving a kingdom
which cannot be shaken, let us have grace. We're receiving a
kingdom which cannot be shaken. It's eternal. It's unmovable. It's not subject to earthquakes.
It's not subject to the fragility of this life and of the flesh
and of natural faith and of anything like that. No. Look over the
page into chapter 13 and at verse 14 where we read, for here we
have no continuing city. Here, in this life, we have no
continuing city, but we seek one to come. If we are to have
a building to last for eternity, it must be immune from shaking,
mustn't it? That Old Testament order and
anything that seeks to mimic it was not immune from shaking. It was shaken. The first temple
in all its glory was taken away. The second temple was destroyed
by Rome and has never been rebuilt. Anything which attempts to mimic
it, anything which bases the relationship with God on law
works, on the things that we do, it's all shakable, and has
been shaken, and will be shaken, and will be removed. If we are
to have a building to last for eternity, and that's what we
seek, a city to come, If we're to have a building to last for
eternity, it must be immune from shaking. It's a kingdom, verse
28, which cannot be shaken. It's the kingdom of God and of
his Christ. And what's it based on? It's
based on the everlasting covenant of God. which cannot be changed,
which cannot be altered, for God is the same yesterday, today,
and forever. And the parties to the covenant,
the everlasting covenant, were the Father who chose a people
in Christ, the Son who came to redeem those people, and specifically
those people, the Holy Spirit who covenanted to regenerate
those people in time and bring them to life and to knowledge
of God. It's based on the everlasting covenant. It's based on Christ's
finished work, because it cannot go back and be undone. Christ's
work is finished. He accomplished it all at the
cross. He cried out, it is finished. Justice was satisfied. The price
of sin was paid. The precious blood which was
redemption's price was shed and paid the price of the sins of
his people. Propitiation, which is the turning
away of anger, the mercy seat of God, was established in the
shed blood of Christ. There is grace in the election
of God, for the purposes of God stand and cannot be moved, and
he chose a people in Christ from before the beginning of time,
before the world was made. Grace in election, Holy Spirit
regeneration, all culminating in the reality which is Christ. Everything else was just a picture
which is shakable, but the reality which is Christ and his gospel
is a reality which cannot be shaken. The unshakable is to
be received. We receiving a kingdom which
cannot be shaken. Why do we have such confidence
in all of this? Because there's nothing of self in it. There's
nothing of our own works in it. It's all of Christ. It's all
of his person and his finished work. It's all of his doing and
dying. Not one iota of it is anything
to do with my doing or what I might do. None of it. None whatsoever. Not in the least little bit.
Absolutely not. It's entirely of him. this unshakable
kingdom entirely of Him. Not my justification, not my
sanctification, not anything that I need to relate to God,
not my adoption, not my citizenship of Zion, none of these things
is in any way dependent on me or anything I have done or will
do. It's all entirely dependent on
Christ and His people in union with Him. Because what he did,
his people did in him. What he is, his people are in
him. That's the confidence of it.
That's why it's unshakable, and we receive this unshakable kingdom. And so therefore, fourth point,
final point, let us have grace, verse 28, let us have grace whereby
we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. Look
in the margin, if you've got a marginal Bible, Where it says
let us have grace, a better translation is let us hold fast grace. Let us hold fast grace whereby
we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. Let
us hold fast grace. How did you come into God's kingdom? If you're in God's kingdom this
morning, how did you get there? Surely you would say by grace
alone, by grace alone. Ephesians 2 verse 8, for by grace
you are saved through faith, through faith is the way that
you apprehended it, that you sensed it. And that, even the
faith, is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Paul writes
to the Galatians, chapter 3, verse 3, Are you so foolish,
having begun in the Spirit? Are you now made perfect by the
flesh? No, it's all in the grace of God. Hold fast, grace! Doesn't it seem contradictory?
Doesn't it seem a little bit like mixing works and grace? Hold fast is something you do,
it's a work, isn't it? Hold fast. Grace, which is the
gift of God, God's riches at Christ's expense. No, it means
this. Having experienced the gift,
cling on to it as if it depended on you, knowing it only depends
on God. It's like Peter says in his second
epistle, the first chapter, do all that you can to make your
calling and election sure, which sounds like the most glaring
contradiction, but it's in the word of God. He says, add to
your faith virtue, and to virtue patience, and to patience self-control,
and thereby make your calling and election sure. You live as
if it depended on you knowing full well it entirely depends
on him who has promised to keep his people. But hold fast grace
and hold it fast for a purpose. Look what the purpose is. Whereby
we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. We are saved Ephesians 2 again
tells us, for good works which God hath before ordained that
we should walk in them. We're not saved and given liberty
in Christ to give us license to live exactly as we want. Somebody
once wrote to Don Faulkner, I think he told us at the conference,
that whenever he heard him preach about the liberty in Christ,
it made him want to go out and commit terrible sins because
he knew that every single one of them was covered by the blood
of Christ and how saddened and angry that made Don feel in response
because that's right, that's not the response to the gospel.
The response to the gospel, this free grace that God has given,
this liberty that God has given, is to serve Him, is to seek to
live for Him, to do all that our lives might be to the praise
of the glory of His grace. How do we live acceptably? Look,
this is an important point. How do we live acceptably? Now,
you go and ask that question in so many places up and down
this country that claim to stand for the truth, and they will
tell you in a moment. They won't hesitate to tell you.
This is how you live acceptably before God. You take the Ten
Commandments, the law of God, and you have them as the believer's
rule of life, and that's how you live. You live as if you
are under the law. They'll say, we know you're not
under the law because Paul says it, but you have a responsibility
to live as if you are under the law. You'll remember Don's illustration
of the chastity belt in his message at the conference. This is what
they'll say. By using the law as the believer's
rule of life, The answer that this scripture gives us is absolutely
not. How do we live for the glory
of God? How do we live serving Him acceptably
with reverence and godly fear? Hold fast the grace that has
saved you. Hold fast to grace and the blessings
of the kingdom, the unshakable kingdom received by grace. Surely
if anywhere Surely if anywhere, and there are many other places,
if the scripture taught that to live, serve God acceptably
with reverence and godly fear, here he would have said, and
hold fast to the Ten Commandments that you are under as a believer,
the law, as your rule of life. But he doesn't. He doesn't say
that. He says, let us hold fast grace. whereby we may serve God acceptably,
with reverence and godly fear. You see, it does matter how we
live. We're free in Christ, but we
don't have license to live as we want. We're free in Christ,
but we have liberty to serve Him acceptably, with reverence
and godly fear, in the grace of God. Because you read all
of the injunctions of the epistles and there are many. There's a
doctrinal foundation and in nearly every one it's followed by some
practical application. It's all about how we should
live. To think that the scripture doesn't tell us how we should
live is completely wrong. Of course it does. But it's in
the grace of God that we should live and serve God acceptably
with reverence and godly fear. In the grace of God. Hold fast
that grace. that grace of the kingdom of
God. So what's the conclusion then? On which basis do you want
to react with God? That of things which God has
shaken? That Old Testament worship and anything that looks like
it, or any legal basis of relationship with God? Or that which is unshakable,
which is the kingdom of God? This kingdom that we receive,
this unshakable kingdom of God that we receive in the gospel
of his grace. If it's the former you want to
relate to him on the basis of that which he has shaken and
will shake, then know this, verse 29, you're in a dangerous place
to be. Heed the lessons of the past.
Our God is It doesn't say was, our God is a consuming fire. He's the same yesterday, today,
and forever. If they escape not who refused
him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape if we
turn away from him that speaketh from heaven. But if it's on the
basis of the latter, the unshakable kingdom of God, then this is
how you will relate to God. You are come to Mount Zion. to
the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, an innumerable
company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn
which are written in heaven, and to God, the judge of all,
and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the
mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling
that speaketh better things than that of Abel.