This morning we will be in the
book of Hebrews, if you would like to turn there. Hebrews. The writer of Hebrews is issuing
yet again another strong commandment, an exhortation, even a warning. And if you look at it and take
it at face value and you say, well, that word right there,
refuse that he's gonna say, means that we can refuse God, like
it's a choice. But those that see it that way
fail to look up the original context and the original word.
And so I'm hoping the Lord will allow us this morning to do just
that and see what the message here is in Hebrews chapter 12.
I'm gonna read two verses, 25 and 26. It says, see that you refuse not
him that speaketh. and this is the Lord Jesus speaking,
see that you refuse not him that speaketh, for 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?
Whose voice then shook the earth, but now he hath promised, saying,
yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. I've titled the message Refuse
Not. Refuse Not. Refuse doesn't mean
to reject like we would think it would. You can look up, I
love the ability to be able to look up what the original was
that the translators came up with. They said, okay, well this
word Seems like it'll mean this in here, and seems like it'll
mean that in there. I'm gonna try to pronounce this original
word, so don't make fun of me. But it's per-ah-hee-tay-oh-mah-hee. That's about as close as I can
get. You know what it means? To beg. Doesn't mean to refuse
at all. It means don't forget to beg. Don't fail in begging God. Let's read that again, knowing
that, see that ye beg, see that you don't forget to beg him that
speaketh, for if they escape not, he refused him that spake
on earth, much more shall not we escape if we turn away from
him that speaketh from heaven. He's saying make sure that you
beg God. Make sure that you beg God. Do
we beg him to obligate him? No. A man or a woman can't obligate
God. That's clear in the scripture.
Somebody said, what about Jacob? He wrestled with the Lord all
night long. Didn't he obligate God and make
him, give him blessing? No, he was clinging to him like
a helpless baby, begging him. That's what that word wrestle
means. He was clinging, cleaving unto him, holding onto him for
dear life. You ever had a, A child who is
very afraid of something, crying, and very scared, wanting to be
held, wanting to be comforted, wanting to be hold, wanting you
to hold them. Even animals, when they get afraid,
they'll come to you, wanting you to protect them. That's what
Jacob was doing. His brother was coming, and he
thought, my brother's gonna kill me. Lord, I can't let go of you.
Until you bless me, until you give me your promise, until you
give me your word, I've got to have you. He was begging him.
No, he wasn't fighting with God saying, okay, I've obligated
you, I've held onto you all night long, now you owe me something.
No, that's what men say, but that's not true, is it? That's
not true. So why do we beg? Because he's
God and I'm not. That's why we beg, because he's
God and you're not. See, either you're God or you're
the beggar. Either you're the king and the
captain or you're the beggar. There is no in between. You can't
be both. And the problem that men have
is they want to be the king. They want to be God. They want
to be the captain of their own salvation. The Lord says here,
fail not to beg because I am God and you are not. If I If I did not allow them to escape
who refused me? How do you think you're gonna
escape? I just spoke from the earth. I just spoke from Sinai
on the earth, and if they refused, they didn't beg. They saw the
lightnings and the thunderings and the shakings of the mountain,
and yet they still, they didn't beg God, did they? They didn't
beg God, they said no. Some of them said, we don't need
a high priest. We don't need these 10 commandments. We're
just fine the way things were. We're okay, let's just go back
to Egypt. And if they didn't escape, how can we escape when
we see our Lord who is now speaking from glory as the mediator of
the new covenant, as the one that's crying grace and peace
unto you, the one that put away sin for his people. He's no longer
crying judgment right now. He's crying, it's finished. How
can we escape if we don't beg for that? Don't beg. As I said,
we don't beg to obligate God, but if you don't beg, the Lord
hasn't given you the need or the ability to beg. He gives
the ability and the need to beg. He does all the choosing, He
does all the electing, all the saving, all the calling, and
all the keeping, and all the keeping. And all throughout scripture,
we have a beautiful depiction of our Lord. Why beg Him? Well,
because of His character. and his person, who he is. If we ever see him as he is,
it'll also be because he's shown us what we are. Paul's talking
and said, you that want to be under the law, have you heard
what's in the, what say of the law? You want to be under the
law, but you can't keep the law. There's no way you can keep the
law. Why would you want to be under it? Because people want something
to do. People want something to do,
but begging is not something that's a work. It's something
that we are enabled to do by the grace of God. It's the same
thing as looking unto Christ. It's the same thing as fleeing
unto Christ. These are all things that God
must enable us to do, or we will never be able to do. A lame man
can't walk until he receives his legs. A dead man can't be
alive until he receives life. The Lord has to do this. To understand the necessity of
begging him, we must look to his character, his holy, divine
nature. Most men would have no problem
in saying God is a God of love. God is a God of mercy. God is
a God of grace. God is a God of pardon. Men would be like, OK, yeah,
I can agree with that. Amen. Yeah, God's a God of love.
God's a God of mercy. God's a God of grace. Where men
get angry at is when you start telling them the truth that also
he's also, and this, you can't separate his attributes, his
character. If God's a God of love, he's
also a God of hate. Says it clearly in the scripture.
If God is a God of compassion, he's also a God of vengeance.
The Lord said, vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay.
He's our God of grace, yes, but he's also our God of wrath. and
judgment. He's our God of mercy, yes, but
he's also our God of justice. Justice must be satisfied. He
will not acquit the guilty. Any gospel that declares that
you must change an attribute of God in order for your salvation
to be accomplished is a false gospel. Any attribute that changes
or says that the attributes of God, any gospel that changes
the attributes of God or says an attribute has to bend or do
this or that in order for you to be saved, it's a false gospel. I'll give you an example. If
our Lord is sovereign, and he is, if our Lord is absolutely
sovereign, if the heavens are subject to him, the earth is
subject to him, and all things that are in the earth are subject
to him, Then what does it mean if I was to say that God wants
to do something but can't unless you let him? That's changing
an attribute of God. Do you see that? No, he's sovereign.
You can't let God do anything. He's God. And this is why our
gospel differs from so other many different gospels, is because
they're false gospels, they're not good news. Our gospel declares
God is seated, successful, he's holy, he's right, he's true. And other gospels see him as
he's trying, he wants to, he wishes, he hopes he can. That's not a gospel at all. You'll never find in scripture
God begging a man to do something. Show me one place in scripture
where God begged a man to do something. You won't find it.
You won't find it. He doesn't beg. We're the beggars.
That's why. Why do we need to beg? Because
we're the beggars. He's not. We're the beggars. He's not.
He's holy and sovereign. He doesn't look to sinful men
to fix their ruined state. Not one time does he look, and
this is good news if the Lord's made you a sinner. This is good
news. He doesn't look to you and say, okay, you fix your fallen
state by doing this and by doing this and by doing this. And where
would, how along would the list need to be then? No, he said,
I have saved you and put away your sin and your fallen state.
I've restored you unto eternal life. Now you're saved. I've
done that. That's what the Lord does for
his people. That's what he does. There's no escaping his perfect
judgment outside of Christ. There's no escaping it. He will
not acquit the guilty. He can't let sin go unpunished.
To say that God loves everybody without exception, and yet some
of those go to hell. You end up in hell, eternal torment.
That's changing the definition of God's love. That's changing
God's attribute, and it's a false gospel. It's a false gospel. That's why the scripture says,
how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? That word
neglect, do you know what it is? To make light of. or to be careless of, to make
light of. It's the same as in our text,
not begging, to make light of salvation. To say, well, yeah,
I mean, he did that, but I did my part, and now we're making
light of it. That's what they're saying. If we do that, if we don't beg,
if we make light of the gospel, then the Lord has not made a
need. He has not created a need. He has to create that need for
us to want him. God's never said one time, I've
done my part, now I need you to do your part. No, he's never
said that. What our God says is, is you
will not come to me that you have eternal life. You will not
come to me that you might have eternal life. Then he turns around
and says, but all that the Father giveth me shall come to me. He
said, you won't come to me that you have eternal life, but all
the Father giveth me shall come to me. And he that cometh to
me, I'll in no wise cast out. I'll save, I'll keep, I won't
lose one. I won't lose one. This is why
he had to establish the first covenant, covenant of grace.
Now he is the end of the law for righteousness sake. The first
covenant, the covenant of works. That's why he established that
to show you and I, we can't come to him. And now he is the end
of that law for righteousness sake, the scripture says. Establishing
the covenant of grace, the second covenant for his people. That's
why it was so necessary. I love that God saved his people
from their sins and never relinquished his nature, never relinquished
his nature, never changed his attributes. He remained perfect.
He remained holy. He remained just. He remained
true. So now we see God seated on the throne as being just and
the justifier of his people by the Lord Jesus Christ. Brethren, the reason that we
must beg is because he said so. Because he said so. I have children. Some of you
have children. And I don't know if you've ever used this line,
Jonah. You're going to use this line one day, I promise you.
Your little girl is going to do something. Why do I have to
do that, daddy? Because I said so. That's it. It's the authority
of the parent. That's what it is. It's the authority
of a parent. It's good to teach your kids
why. But sometimes in the middle of, don't run across that street.
Why? Because I said so. It's a little more dire circumstances
I'll explain later. But right now, don't do that.
Our Lord's saying, come unto me, all you that are labored
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Come unto me. Our Lord is saying, believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved. You will believe
because I've saved you. That's why. And now I'm calling
you. That's why you're believing. He's saying, fail not to beg
for the Lord Jesus Christ. For only they that beg receive
him. They that receive him beg and
only they that beg receive him. Why do we beg? How do we receive
him? It's the work of the Lord through
the gospel by the Holy Spirit. It's all his work. That's all
his work. He makes us the need by showing
us his nature and our nature. Gave us the law to show us our
nature and his. It's not that we have a decision
to make, it's that our will is subject to our nature. Our will
will never choose God. So he chose us in the covenant
of grace, his people. He chose some people to eternal
life and he saved them by his own blood. Although men preach doing good
deeds and having good morals and living good lives, being
nice to people, and I don't think there's anything wrong with having
living moral lives or being nice to people. I believe having a
forgiving heart, those that forgive, you can, if you're able to forgive,
it's because you've been, see how much you've been forgiven.
That's just true, isn't it? If I'm able to forgive, if I'm
readily to forgive when somebody upsets me, it's because I see
how much I have been forgiven. Those that don't see they're
forgiven. They probably don't forgive very well, but this will
not earn us favor from God. That's the furthest thing from
the truth. What we do in this flesh is not going to fix our
depravity. It's not going to fix our sin. This is why we must
beg Lord save me have mercy on me the center. That's what we
beg. You can't earn favor with God by doing any part of salvation.
And as a matter of fact, if we try to do anything in order to
earn salvation or add to salvation, the finished work of the cross,
it's called iniquity. And Psalm 5.5 says, thou hatest
all workers of iniquity. But I do have good news. If you
do want favor with God, I can tell you how. On the authority
of the word of God, I can tell you how. What he says in his
word. If you want favor with God, look to Christ. That's it. That's it. If you want favor
with God, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's it. If you
want favor with God, come to Christ. Don't bring anything. Come to him. If you want favor
with God, beg for him. Cry out to him, Lord, have mercy
on me, the sinner. He's pleased with his darling
son. His glory exceeds the glory of man more than light exceeds
darkness. Men think that they have glory. We got a game coming
up today. Everybody here knows about that. It's a big game.
They're gonna come out there parading and everybody's gonna
see them in all their glory. The Lord Jesus Christ's glory
far exceeds the glory of any, every single person that's in
that stadium tonight. He far exceeds their glory like
the light in darkness. That's what it is. How much glory
does darkness have compared to the light? Oh, that's him. He's glorious. He's glorious. His power exceeds the man's power,
more than a dead man's power compared to a live man's power.
His power exceeds man's power more than a live man's power
exceeds a dead man. How much power does a dead man
have? How strong is a dead man? How powerful is a man alive?
Well, infinitely more, infinitely. And besides that, he's God. He's not subject to our will
in any way we're subject to his, because his will is infinite
and it's holy and it's sovereign. This is why we must beg for Christ,
because without Him, there's no hope or eternal life. There is none. He is life eternal.
This is life eternal, he said in John 17, that they may know
Him that thou hast sent. They may know you, the only true
God, and Him that thou hast sent. That's eternal life. Knowing
Christ is eternal life. That's not complicated, is it?
Oh Lord, let me know Christ. Let me know God. Lord, let me
know you. Allow me to see you, allow me
to believe you, allow me to put my trust in you. Give me faith
to believe. Only those made to beg will and
can beg, and others, they'll accuse and excuse themselves,
never seeing God as God. This is why we beg. Maybe I titled
this the wrong way, I don't know, but why we beg. Maybe I'll change it. Let's read
this again, Hebrews chapter 12. See that ye refuse not him that
speaketh, for if they escape not, he refused him that spake
on earth, much more shall not we escape if we turn away from
him that speaketh from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth.
But now he hath promised saying, yet once more I shake not the
earth only, but also heaven. If those that heard God speak
on the earth whenever they received the law. And they didn't beg
for mercy. They were destroyed. Let me explain
this a little more in detail. These are the children of Israel
that came out of Egypt. The 10 plagues of Egypt, they
would have been horrendous to behold. They would have been
awful to behold, full of awe. They would have been mind-blowing,
some of the things that they saw. And yet they were protected from
the plagues, the children of Israel were, because they were
God's chosen people. Now we know that that's a picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ endearing the wrath of God. We also know
that it's a picture of the judgment of men and women that's not in
Christ and that the Lord's going to protect them. they saw all
this. And the Lord brings them out
with a mighty hand, the scripture says. And if that wasn't enough,
they come to the Red Sea. And when they get to the Red
Sea, they're back, they have their back up against it. And Pharaoh's army
is bearing down on them. And these are not, these are not
warriors. These are farmers and they were
slaves. They're, they probably some stout fellas, but they don't
know how to fight. They never had training in fighting.
And here's a military coming after them. And what did they
do? Well, they started blaming God
and Moses. It's your fault. You brought us here to die. It's
all your fault. Ain't that what we do? The first chance we get,
we blame somebody else or something. They didn't believe God at that
moment, but the Lord said, tell them to stand still and see the
salvation of the Lord. You want to have favor with God,
stand still. Look to Christ. That's it. Don't
move a muscle. Well, they were made to do so,
and the Lord told Moses to cast thy cloak upon the water. He did, and the waves rolled
back, and they crossed the Red Sea. They crossed an ocean, a
sea. It wasn't a little ocean. I told
us the number a while back. It was 1,000-something feet deep,
wasn't it? I can't remember. I think it was a lot more than
that, but I didn't want to exaggerate. They get to the other side, but
Pharaoh's army was drowned in the deep. They didn't have to
lift sword. They didn't have to lift any weapon to protect
themselves. God protected them. They're brought
to the other side, and now they're singing songs of rejoicing, and
they come to Mount Sinai, and Moses says, the Lord told us
to come here to give the law, and I'm gonna go up and worship
the Lord, and he does. And they heard the thunderings
and the quakings. And the Lord said, you tell them
that if they even come near this mountain, they'll be put to death.
Not even an animal can touch it or it shall die. Not an ox,
not a sheep, nothing can touch it. It represents the Lord's
holiness. This is part of his character.
This is why you and I can't approach God on our own. It's the same.
If we approach God on our own, we're coming to Mount Sinai.
Our works will be judged. We need the substitute, the one
that can go to the mountain, the Lord Jesus Christ, that can
satisfy God. Well, if they saw all this miraculous, these miraculous things that
came to pass, but some of them rejected, short time after that,
We see that there was a man named Korah and Dathan. They got a
group of people together and said, why is it that Moses and
Aaron and them can be our priests and we can't? What's the difference
between them and us? The difference was God's word.
That was the difference. They were looking on the outside.
God was looking on the inside. Korah and Dathan got a bunch
of people together and said, all right, let's go tell them
how we feel about it. And they did, and it was decided,
because they wanted to be their own priests, Moses said, well,
we're all gonna burn incense, and the one that the Lord accepts,
he'll be the priest. You think that you're capable
of being in the same position as we are? We're just doing what
the Lord told us. And you know what the Lord did that day? He
opened up the earth and swallowed up 400 of them, I believe it
was, right in the earth, and closed it back up. All that remained
was the Lord's priests. This is why we beg. We need a
priest. Can't be our own priest. Can't
be our own priest. We need a priest. We can't part
the waters of death. We need the one who took the
keys of death, hell, and the grave, the one that died for
his people. We need him. This is why we beg. They saw all these things, they
heard all these things, and yet they did not beg for mercy and
were destroyed. But now we see the fullness of
the gospel fulfilled. We have the beginning to the
end in front of us. How much more shall we not escape
if we fail to beg Him? If we don't ever come to Christ,
if we don't ever, Lord, cause me to come to Christ. enable
me to come to Christ. I see that I can't do it on my
own, but I have a desire to, I need you, Lord, save me. Two sides to that coin, one man
may say, well, I am blind. That's true. But if the Lord
don't come to where I'm at and cause me to see, then I'll never,
I'll never see. Well, that's true, it's very
true, but you wouldn't hear Bartimaeus saying that. Blond Bartimaeus
said, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. What was he
doing? He was begging. Why was he begging? God gave
him a need. And they said, be quiet, let the master alone.
He cried louder, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me.
The Lord said, if you won't cry, beg for him. Beg for it. Don't sit there thinking, I don't
have to do anything. I don't have to cry out for mercy. I'll
just sit right here and see what happens. No, that's the whole
point. If we fail to beg, that means the Lord hasn't given us
the need to beg. Begging's not a work that we
do in order to offer ourself up unto God. Begging is the result
of the Lord giving us faith to believe him already. Begging
is, a dead man can't beg. Begging's the result of already
being made alive. We don't beg to be saved, we beg because we
are saved, because he saved us. That's why we beg. Are you begging? That's really good evidence that
the Lord's put a need in your heart for him. Religion has it
all backwards, don't they? Look at You've got the two covenants
here, and that's the importance of this, really, this entire
Hebrew, this entire book. But it's coming to an end, and
this is kind of one of the last exhortations he gives. But the
old covenant spoke of death and sin and separation, but look
in verse 24 what the new covenant speaks. And to Jesus, the mediator
of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh
better things than that of Abel. What does it speak? Well, it
no longer speaks of death, and separation and punishment, torment,
it speaks of life and grace and mercy and peace. That's what
it speaks of. That's the difference. That's
the two different covenants. Jesus Christ is who and what
is speaking. This is who we must flee to.
This is who we beg for. Lord, give me this grace. Give
me this life. Give me this peace. Beg for the blood that says perfectly
righteous. The blood that speaks, that's
what he said, the blood that speaks. What does it speak? Grace,
mercy, truth, life. To every one of God's elect,
it speaks. Verse 25, see that ye refuse not him that speaketh,
for if they escape not who refused him that spake on the earth,
Much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that
speaketh from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth, but now
he hath promised, saying, yet once more I shake not the earth
only, but also heaven. See that you fail not to beg
him. Beg him for his grace. Beg him
for his mercy. You ever beg the Lord? Yeah. How often? Oh, about every day. Just one time a day? No, not
usually. It's pretty often. I don't know
the exact number. Sometimes more than others. When
do you beg Him? When I get in trouble. When are
you really in trouble? When you see your sin. When I
see my sin and I think to myself, how could someone that the Lord
loves do something like that? I must surely not be one of His.
And the Lord says, you're looking at the wrong person. You're looking
at the wrong person. Look to Christ. Look to Christ,
believe Him. Looking to yourself thinking
that you're not good enough is unbelief. Look to Christ. Do
you believe the blood put away every sin of God's people? Yes.
Do you believe there's a sin that's too great that the blood
did not put away that still remains that Christ was putting away? No, He put away every one of
them. Then look to Him. Stop looking at your sins. Stop
looking at yourself. Stop looking at your life. Because
your life is hid with God in Christ. Look to Him and live. Beg for Him. Beg for His righteousness. We don't have any righteousness,
do we? Beg for His perfection. We don't
have any perfection. Name one thing you've done perfect.
We can't, can we? Not one thing. If you come to Him, God is the
doer of it. He said, all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I in no
wise will cast out. If you come to Him, God's the
doer of it. He made a need that only He can fill, and He's filled
that need with Jesus Christ. Relinquish any foolish pride
or notion that you can decide anything spiritual, it's not
gonna happen. It doesn't work that way. Men believe they can
do things physically that affects them spiritually. Well, that's
not true when it comes to eternal life. You can do things physically
that negatively affect you. The sin that we do, the sin that
we are, that'll be judged. But it was judged in Christ for
his people. That's the good news. That's
the good news. I want the Lord to see Christ's
works on my behalf, don't you? I want the Lord to look to the
lamb on my behalf, not to me. I don't want the Lord to say,
you're doing a good job and you're gonna be rewarded for what you
have done. And no believer would. You know why? Because we see
that there's none good, no not one. We want Christ's works to
be our works. We want Christ's life to be our
life. We want his goodness, his perfection,
his righteousness, his holiness. We need a substitute. Beg for
him. Beg for him. Take down the flag of rebellion
in your heart and bow before his holiness. My closing question
is this. Have you ever came to Christ?
That sounds like a simple question. Some men hears and they'll say,
well, how do you do that? Well, it's not coming to the
front of the church. It's not coming to a baptistry. It's not
coming to the Lord's table. Have you ever came to Christ?
He's a person. Salvation's a person. Salvation's
not an act that you and I do. Salvation's not a prayer that
you and I pray. Salvation is a person. Have you ever came
to Christ? If you do, you can't move a muscle
because you'll make a work out of it. So it can't be something
that we do physically, it must be done through the eyes of faith.
But faith is given simultaneously with life, along with repentance.
So if you come to Christ, it will be because God has given
you life and repentance and faith. So what do you need to beg for?
Lord, give me life, give me faith, give me repentance, cause me
to see him, cause me to see him. Do you believe in your righteousness
before God or are you begging for His? You know, if you pray,
Lord have mercy on me, the sinner, and you've been able to pray
that through the heart of faith the Lord's given you, that'll
never stop until you see Him face to face. It'll never stop. Lord have mercy on me, the sinner.
Lord have mercy on me, the sinner. Woe is me, I'm undone, I'm a
man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips. David said, I've sinned against
the Lord. I've sinned against the Lord. Nathan said, fear not,
the Lord hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die. As a matter of fact, praying
have mercy on me a sinner becomes more frequent. Anybody testify
to that? Becomes more frequent. See that
you refuse not him who speaketh. Come to Christ, who is all our
salvation, all our wisdom, all of our righteousness, all of
our sanctification, all our redemption. Beg for him. Let's pray. Father, cause us to beg for you
through the eyes of faith that you've given us. Cause us to
refuse not you. Bless us to our understanding
for your glory. In Christ's name, amen. Let's take a break.