We will be in Hebrews chapter
12 both hours this morning if you would like to follow along. Hebrews chapter 12. I'll go ahead and tell you that
I was studying this and was going to try to make two different
messages, two different ways, a different thing. I've decided
to title this Two Mountains, Part One and Part Two, just because
as I was doing Part One, the notes I was taking and the language
that's written there, it was more than one message. And I
learned a few Sundays ago, if you keep writing and writing
and writing, you're going to end up with part one and part
two anyway. So, um, part one and part two, two mountains,
Hebrews chapter 12. Now, before his final admonition,
the writer is closing here with an argument. Um, he's went through
the Hebrews giving us different instances, and I say argument,
it's a declaration is what it is, but it's something that's
contrary or something that would be opposite of what they believed
in, something that they would have been holding to. And now
he's saying to them again, regarding the old covenant, the old covenant's
gone away. Don't go to the old covenant. And the subject that
we have this morning is the better covenant, the better covenant. And to further cement this, He's
going to bring us back to the place where he points us to Christ. Christ being the one who saved
his people from their sin. Father being the one that elected
his people. How salvation has been accomplished. Don't go to
the old covenant. None of that happened under the old covenant.
That was the works covenant. This is what he's iterated throughout
all of Hebrews. This is really what Hebrews is
all about from the very beginning is to draw the attention away
from, for the Hebrews that he's writing to, from their law living,
from their works, and point them to Christ and say, no, Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness. Christ is who we cleave to, who
we run to. Now, something important is that
there is now and always have ever been and always will be
only two covenants. One is everlasting, and one is
temporal. One is eternal, and one is not
eternal. You have the covenant of works
that is given in time to men and it says do and live. But
the covenant of works was never given in order to save someone
but it was to show us our utter dependency upon our need of a
savior, our utter dependency of a substitute, our utter dependency
of a surety, someone who could stand in our place. It was to
show us that we're utterly sinful. And therefore the covenant of
grace far exceeds the covenant of works because it was in eternity
whenever that covenant came to be, before time ever began. When
the Lord wrote the names of his people in the book, he elected
them unto salvation. That's the covenant of grace.
It wasn't by works of righteousness we had done. It wasn't our merits.
It wasn't our efforts. He chose some to eternal life
at that time. That's called the covenant of
grace. And the fulfillment of the covenant of grace was done
on the cross of Calvary. That was the completion of it.
And we read, Rob read for us in the men's study over in Corinthians
where it says how that Christ died according to the scriptures.
The problem men have is not that Christ was born or Christ lived
or that Christ died. They have a problem with them
being born, living and dying according to the scriptures,
according to God's own will and purpose to redeem those people
that I just mentioned that were elected. People don't like the
fact that God is sovereign in salvation. Our flesh actually
hates it. Our flesh will kick against that
every chance that it gets, even now. But the Lord has made it
clear that he is God and we are not. He's other than we are.
His thoughts are above our thoughts and his ways are above our ways.
Therefore, if he doesn't make a new covenant or reveal a new
covenant unto us called the covenant of grace, we have no hope of
salvation. No one was saved under the old covenant. No one was
saved under the Mosaic covenant. of works, not one person, not
one person. Now he here, in our text, talks
about two mountains. And we're gonna read that in
just a second. But he talks about two mountains. He talks about
the mountain that can be touched. He says, you've not come to that
mountain, but you've come to Mount Zion. And the reason he's
doing that, it's a metaphor of the old covenant and the new
covenant. He's writing to an audience, his Hebrew audience.
That's why it's called the book of Hebrews. They were Jews. They
would have known through the Torah, the first five books of
the Bible that they studied and would have known very much about
and believed everything that happened in the book of Exodus,
where they came to Mount Sinai. And the Lord gave them the law,
gave them the tablets of stone. They would have been taught about
the plagues of Egypt. They would have been taught about
the Red Sea. They would have been taught about all the things that the Lord
did for the children of Israel. And they would have certainly
been taught about that mountain in particular. That mountain
was a dreadful mountain. You couldn't approach it. Anyone
that approached it, anyone that touched it, died. That was the
rule, that was the law that God gave. If you touch this mountain,
you're going to die. Matter of fact, even if an animal
put its hoof on that mountain, as we're gonna read here in a
second, even if an animal put its hoof on there, it was to
die. And what is that a picture of? Well, it's a picture of us
not ever being able to touch God and live. He's holy. He's just. He's righteous. He's true. We're sinful. We're false. Run holy. We don't have pure thoughts.
He said, even the stars are not pure in my sight. So how can
a man be clean? The Lord had to make a covenant
of grace. The Lord had to save some people
or they wouldn't be saved. And that's exactly what he did.
This first mountain metaphorically represents the law of God. The declaration that here is
the Lord's standard. And you and I cannot live up
to that standard. We can't. And there's some that
go about trying to establish a law life, law style life, where
they're doing different things, where it's ceremonial, whether
it's moral, whether it's civil, different kinds of laws. And
most do not go back to the Mosaic Law and actually try to keep
the Mosaic Law. I remember as a boy, my Parents were very strict on the
fact you don't mow the yard on Sunday. Anybody else ever had
that? Don't mow the yard on Sunday.
Why? It's the Lord's day. That's the Lord's day. You don't
do that. That's the Sabbath day. Actually, it's not. Saturday
is the Sabbath day. So that's the first thing they
had wrong. But the second thing was is the Sabbath day represented
a person. It wasn't a day of the week.
Don't work on the finished work of Christ is what the Lord was
saying. And that's the whole point. Men will go back to the law thinking
that they're pleasing God by not mowing their yard on Sundays,
when in fact it's talking about not working as part of your salvation. Don't work on the Sabbath, His
finished work. God rested on the Sabbath. That's
the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Sabbath incarnate.
He's the Sabbath. So we see that men don't necessarily
try to keep the Mosaic law. But they do have the law written
upon their heart, and they do try to obey that law unto salvation,
and they try to do things unto salvation. And in doing so, what
is the consequence of doing? Death, because all that we can
produce is sin. Now, it's as simple, and I want
this to be as simple as it can be this morning, if we go to
Mount Sinai for salvation, we will always die. Period. Nobody is ever, nobody was saved
because of Mount Sinai. That was God's, that represents
judgment, that represents death, that represents darkness, that
represents separation. It doesn't represent life, but
Mount Zion does. It represents life and light
and joy and peace with God. And this is what Christ hath
wrought, all by himself, by his own blood. That's the good news
of the gospel. So to go to Mount Sinai in any
way, shape or form is to literally discredit Christ and say, I can
approach this mountain by myself. I can offer up my work. I can
make a choice. I can live a life. I can do this
or I won't do that and God will be pleased with me. And this
is the lie that men tell. This is the lie that came from
the beginning in the garden that Satan said from the beginning,
you can do something and become God. It's not true. It's just
not true. It's the lie, isn't it? But yet
there's so many that believe it. And sadly, they ignorantly
believe it. Men, most, I know there's some
out there that would tell you they feel like a god, I guess,
and a narcissist. We're all narcissists by nature,
so I don't even know how to describe. But you understand what I mean.
Some people have a holier than thou, better than thou attitude.
They act like they're gods. You know what I mean? No, he's
God and we're not. But men desire to be praised.
They desire to be worshiped like God. But the Lord said, I am
the Lord. I am the Lord. I'm worthy of
all glory and honor and praise. Not you, not me. He's not going
to let us have any glory. So approaching Mount Sinai is
to bring glory upon yourself, not him. but approaching Mount
Zion, the finished work of Christ, and that's what that represents,
is everything's complete in that city. There's not one brick out
of place. Lord doesn't need help sweeping
the floor, even. Everything's perfect. You have
one job to do at Mount Zion, rest. Rest. Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and rest. That's the difference. Sinai
says work, do, do, do. But when is it enough? It's never
enough. And that was the picture throughout the entire Old Testament.
You remember all the sacrifices they would bring in and they
would constantly be working. They would be slaving away, figuratively
speaking, on the sacrifice day after day after day, week after
week, year after year. And not one sin was remitted.
Not one sin was put away. But that was the way the Lord
allowed them to worship looking forward to the cross of Christ.
Why did they do that? Well, God gave them a way to
worship him in the Old Testament. And to also show them you cannot
save yourself no matter what you do. No matter what you do. Because no one could keep the
law perfectly, but one did. And his name was the Lord Jesus
Christ. He kept it perfectly. The substitute of his people,
he kept it perfectly. Then he imputed that righteousness
to his people by his finished work. And he completed that work
and it's called Mount Zion. That's where we're at right now. Let's read this together. Hebrews
chapter 12, verse 18. For ye are not come unto the
mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor
into blackness, and darkness, and tempest." Now notice the
description here of Mount Sinai. This is Mount Sinai. You can
go to Exodus 19 verse 12, you'll find that's exactly where they're
at. This is Mount Sinai, it burned with fire, blackness, and darkness,
and tempest. And then he goes on to say, and
the sound of trumpet, And the voice of words, which voice that
they heard, entreated that the word should not be spoken to
them anymore. For they could not endure that
which was commanded. And if so much a beast touched
the mountain, it shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart.
And so terrible was the sight that even Moses said, I exceedingly
fear and quake, but ye are calm. unto Mount Zion, and unto the
city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable
company of angels, to the general assembly and the 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. That's what we're talking
about, the new covenant. And to the blood of sprinkling
that speaketh better things than that of Abel. My question to
us this morning is do you believe what God says about you and about
him? Do you believe what God says
about you and about him? Not a little bit, because a little
bit won't do you any good. Do you believe you're a sinner?
Do you believe you're a sinner? Moreover, do you believe you're
the sinner? Can you look at anybody else and see their life and say,
well, I'm not as bad as that person? If that's the case, you're
not the sinner. Too many times we get caught
up in what we see physically rather than what the Lord sees
spiritually. He looks down in the heart, says there are open
sepulchers. He looks all the way down and
sees that we're full of dead men's bones. There's nothing
good about us in and of ourself. Do we believe that? Do we believe
what God says about us that we're shaping an iniquity? that we're
born in sin? Do we believe that what God has
said in his word about us not being able to keep the commandments
whatsoever, not being able to please God, do we believe that?
They that are in the flesh cannot please God, do we believe that?
If we believe that, then I must implore us, do not approach Sinai
to fix it, because it won't fix it. It will make it worse. And
what is it to approach Sinai? It is to lay your hand to anything
thinking you're gonna please God. Lay your hand to anything
thinking you're gonna please God. If I get up here and I begin
telling you, well, this is what the Lord says you should do.
And I'm not even gonna use an example because if I use an example,
I may even say it wrong. But you should start doing this
more and you should start doing that more and do it unto the
Lord. And maybe I'll have the best
intentions, but do you know what we will hear? You know what we
will do as soon as we hear that? We will do our very best to do
that work. We'll do our very best. I mean,
we really will. We'll do our very best to do that work in
and of ourself, looking to what we're doing. I've done that now,
and I'm doing that now. If I say, okay, you need to read
your Bible more. You need to read your Bible more.
And then you leave and you come back next Sunday, well, I read
my Bible more. Now I know that I'm doing what I'm supposed to
do. You know what motivates the believer? Not do. But look to
Christ and know that it is finished. He'll put the craving for his
word in your heart. He'll cause you to desire his
word. He'll cause you to desire to
pray and speak to him. He'll cause you to seek his face.
So how is it that we do, no matter what we do, whether we eat or
drink or whatsoever we do, we do alter the glory of God. How
do you do that? looking unto the Lord Jesus Christ,
not as a work, not as an obligation, because the moment I give you
something to do, it's gonna become an obligation to you to do it,
you're going to leave thinking, I'm good enough, I've done that,
we'll make a work out of it, won't we? No matter the best
intentions, no matter what we would, not even if I'm, even
if we're most sincere, we'll look at ourself immediately,
won't we? That's what we do by nature. And you know what that's
called? That's going to Sinai. That's
going to Sinai. That's putting our hand to it.
Some way, shape, or form, it's putting our hand to it. No, no,
no. Whatever you do, look to Christ. Look to Him. You want to be fulfilled, look
to Christ. You want to be perfect, look
to Christ. You want to be spotless, look
to Christ. You want to be used of the Lord, look to Christ.
You want to be in fellowship with God, look to His Son. Don't
look to yourself. Now, am I excusing people that
never pick up their scripture and never read books? Believe
the scripture, let's leave it there, scripture. Listen to messages,
you never do that. If that's between you and the
Lord, if the Lord puts a desire on your heart to do it, do it.
But if he doesn't, don't do it as a work. That's the whole point
this morning. Lord puts a desire in his people's
heart to seek righteousness, knowing we have none, knowing
we can't attain any, knowing that going to Zion, I'm sorry,
going to Sinai will kill us. That's what he's saying here.
It will kill you. If you do that, the end of those who seek righteousness
by going to Sinai, by trying to live by the law is death. Because that's all that we can
produce is sin. And the wages of sin is death. Tells us all have sinned and
come short of the glory of God. Do you believe that? Don't go
to Sinai then. Don't flee to Sinai. But notice this, this is important.
He says, but ye have not come unto the mount that might be
touched. And he tells us later on in verse 22, but ye are come
unto Mount Zion. Now who's the ye here? I wanna
know who they are. I got to know who they are. He's
talking to particular people. He's not talking to everybody.
The word of God was not written to everybody. It was written
to the Lord's people. It's a love letter. Just as you would write
a letter to your wife, you would not write the same love letter
to my wife, hopefully. It wouldn't work out too good
for everybody, would it? It's just not what we do. No, it's
foolishness, isn't it? We write the letter to the one
we love, the one that I have love for, and that's what the
Lord did for his people. He wrote to his people these words. This
is a warning. Don't go to Sinai. Don't flee to Sinai. You've not
come to that mountain. You've not come to that mountain.
Your righteousness is not in Sinai. It's not in judgment.
It's not in the blackness. It's in Zion. You want to see
the glory of God. You won't find it. You will not
find it in Sinai. Think about all the things that
the children of Israel saw. They saw the Lord's glory to
some degree. The parting of the Red Sea, was
that not the Lord's? How much glory did they see in
that? And the picture of the Lord's people being taken across
through death. I mean, that's what that water
represented. Every step had to be taken and
the water would keep going back and they took another step and
looking unto Christ. It's a picture of the believer's
life. What about in Egypt? We see the children of Israel,
all the plagues that they had that came forth. That was a picture
of what fell upon the Son of God on the cross of Calvary.
They saw physically these things. But at the end of it all, Moses
said, well, show me your glory. He still wanted to see the Lord's
face. And he said, you can't see my face and live. If you
want to see the Lord's glory, look to Christ. Don't look to
Sinai. Look to Christ. For the moment
you look to your works, you're not looking to the glory of God.
You're looking at your own glory. And the glory, which is the Lord
Jesus Christ, the glory of God is found in the Lord Jesus Christ.
It'll be hidden from you. It'll be hidden from you. Lord brought the children of
Israel here to give them commandment. And this commandment
that he gave them, it's the same rules of life that they were
following since the garden. Cain knew it was wrong to kill
his brother Abel. He knew it was wrong. He knew it was murder.
There's no doubt about that. No doubt about that. All the
other things that transpired after that. Men had a conscience.
The Lord has given men a conscience. Conscience will never lead you
to Christ, but it might keep you out of trouble, if you listen
to it. But it can't lead you to Christ.
Cain knew it was wrong to kill his brother Abel. What's my point?
The point is the Lord just finally ripped down the things that they
were trying to keep and said, well, here it is, black and white,
plain and simple. And it's not just the 10 commandments.
You want to talk about the laws of the Lord and all the ordinances
that he gave? I mean, there's hundreds, hundreds of them that
the Lord gave them to keep and they couldn't keep them. And
neither can we keep them. And that's what it was to show
us. If you want to please God, you've got to be perfect. You
have to be perfect. And that's why he tells us here,
well, you've not come to Sinai to keep the law and to do all
these ordinances, but you've come to Zion because Christ is
the end of the law for righteousness. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believes, to his people, he's made them
righteous, and therefore, when you died in Christ, you died
under the law. The payment was paid, death was
the consequence, and you died in him. That's the good news
of the gospel. And in dying in him, you are
resurrected in him to live life anew. These two mountains are given as a metaphor. Both
examples are real. They're real places. One's spiritual,
New Jerusalem. One's spiritual, Zion. It's spiritual. And then one's physical. And
the covenant that was given, covenant of works, was given
in time as a physical covenant. The covenant of grace far exceeded
the covenant of works, and it was given in the eternal. So
it's a spiritual covenant, everlasting. You remember what everlasting
covenant, you remember what he told Abraham, I will make with you
an everlasting covenant? What did David say on his deathbed?
Although it be not so with my house, yet the Lord hath made
with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure,
this is all my hope, all my salvation, Will the Lord make it not to
grow? What was that everlasting covenant? Well, it never had
a beginning and it never had an end. And that's the covenant of grace
whereby sinners are saved. The reason we have hope for eternal
life is the covenant God made with God, not the covenant God
made with man, not the covenant where he says, if you do this,
I'm going to save you. The covenant that said, I'm going
to save you, and you're gonna be saved. That's the covenant
that gives hope. That's the covenant that gives
the Lord's people rest. For if it's by what we do, we know that
we're certainly in trouble, because we know what we are, if we believe
what God says. The problem approaching Mount
Sinai, I thought of this and, You'll agree with me on this,
I'm sure. The problem with approaching Mount Sinai, there's nothing
wrong with Mount Sinai. Problem's us, not the mountain.
And that's the interesting part is men think that, okay, well,
there's something wrong with the mountain because I'm not good enough.
No, you're just not good enough in and of yourself because you're
a sinner. And I remember this week, actually, I saw the sign
on a Big, I don't want to call them mega churches. I don't know
what you call them. But anyways, it said something along the lines
of, God's in your corner. He's for you. He's fighting for
you. Now you have to do the rest. And I thought, man, are we talking
about a boxing ring here? So he's my coach in the corner,
and I just got to get out here and who am I fighting? I feel
like I'm fighting myself. Who am I fighting? God, well,
if that's the case, I gotta go to Sinai to see if I'm justified
then and see, okay, well, I've done this and this and this,
now how to do, coach? It just doesn't work like that. No, the
Lord did it all in salvation. We weren't even in the ring.
We weren't nowhere. We weren't before time ever began.
We weren't even in existence yet. The Lord saw us in Christ
Jesus. That's the covenant of grace.
That's the covenant of grace. No, the law was given to show
you and I, you cannot please God in and of yourself. Cannot. You cannot. If you want to please
God, look to the one that pleased God, the Lord Jesus Christ. He
pleases God. He pleases God. The issue is
that men don't really believe that they're that bad. They compare
their works to other people's works and their deeds to other
people's deeds, and they excuse themselves or accuse others,
or then they even, sometimes they exalt their self. They say,
well, I'm not like you. I'm better than you are. I would
never do such a thing. What did Paul say? But for the
grace of God, there go I. You can testify to that, can't
you? But for the grace of God, there
go I. What was it you're talking about, preacher? It doesn't matter.
You know exactly. Whatever it may be, but for the
grace of God, there go I. Lord, if you remove your hand
from me, and let the wickedness of my own heart, not even the
temptations of the adversary, but the wickedness of my own
heart run rampant, what would I be capable of? What would I
be capable of? The most grotesque, wicked things.
But oh, the Lord, he keeps his people. He keeps his people. He gives grace upon grace, and
he keeps those, everything around his people, he keeps as well.
Nothing can get to you that doesn't pass through his hand. It's not
purposed by him for your good and his glory. Meaning tomorrow
morning, you're not gonna wake up and find something brand new
that's not good for you. Somebody said, well, it doesn't
feel too good. Well, your flesh might not like it, but God says
it's for your good and his glory. So if he's given us the faith
to believe him, then we look to Christ and say, truth, Lord,
thank you for this very difficult trial that you've given me. Sometimes
it's hard to say it that way, isn't it? But at the end, you
can look back and say, surely goodness and mercy shall follow
me all the days of my life. I see now you were making me
flee to you instead of trying to go to Sinai and fix it. Because I would went to Sinai
to fix it had it not been for you saving me from myself. That's it, isn't it? As soon
as another problem pops up, we may try to flee. And that's the
good news about it. Those that actually do leave,
this isn't good news, I'll tell you the good news in a second.
Those that actually do leave, that's apostasy, for them to
know the truth and then actually fall away from the truth. And
that's mentioned in different places in the scripture. That's not
what I'm talking about here. The good news is those that are the Lord's,
He won't lose one. So even if for a brief moment,
in unbelief, we go to Sinai and we try to put our hand to it,
your hand's gonna get slapped. The Lord's gonna say no. You
can't do that. Not gonna allow it. You're not
gonna take glory away from my son. And he turns us back again. That's why in the scripture he
says, turn us, O Lord, and we shall be turned. He said, create
in me a clean heart, O God. This is the prayer of all God's
elect in the scripture. They continually are begging
the Lord, turn me, teach me, make me, cause me. That's the
prayer, that's the plea. Have mercy on me, the sinner.
That never goes away. No, we never get away from saying,
have mercy on me, the sinner. And I love the Lord's response.
Every time a sinner the Lord has saved by his grace comes
to him, begging for that have mercy, he says, Fear not, I've
put away your sin, you shall not die. Put away your sin on
the cross of Calvary. Now, what I didn't want to do
this morning was to just focus on Sinai for the first hour and
just Zion the second hour, because you could preach the facts of
Sinai and actually not preach Christ. And that was something
I was struggling with to begin with, as I did not want to miss
our Lord. And as we're going, that's why I keep reverting back
to the Lord's finished work and the difference. So we're just
going to keep kind of ping ponging back and forth. But look here
at the at verse 18 through 21, and notice the result of approaching
this mountain. I already mentioned it briefly,
but you're not coming to the mount that might be touched and
that burned with fire, nor into blackness and darkness and tempest.
And the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, which voice
they that heard entreated that they would should, that the word
should not be spoken to them anymore. for they could not endure
that which was commanded. And if so much a beast touched
the mountain, it shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart.
And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, I exceedingly
fear and quake." Moses exceedingly feared and quaked? Think about
that for a second. Moses, the one that stood before
God at the burning bush, the Lord said, remove thy shoes from
off thy feet for the place thou stand is holy ground. He's speaking
to God through a bush that doesn't burn. We cannot enter into that. We can try. I'm sure some of
you have, and that's something else we do. We often will put
images in our head. We don't have a clue what it
looked like. We don't have a clue. We can't enter into it. But the
Lord spoke to Moses out of the burning bush. Then he says, you're
gonna go down to Egypt and you're gonna tell Pharaoh to let my
people go. And Moses says, you got the wrong guy. And the Lord says to Moses, who
taught the lame to walk, the dumb to speak? He said, did I
not do that? Now go. And he says these words,
I will be with you, Moses. Oh, what comfort to the believer.
If nobody else is with me, if he's with me, we're okay. We're
okay. He goes down and he stands before
Pharaoh and Lord already told him to cast down your rod in
front of Pharaoh whenever you see him. And he does so. But
when he does, it turns into a snake. And you can kind of imagine Moses
seeing this for the first time. He was probably thinking, wow,
this is really impressive. Well, they didn't impress Pharaoh
or the other magicians. They did the same thing, parlor
trick, copyright, or the copy, that same thing. But his serpents
swallowed up the other serpents that they made. And Pharaoh said,
I'm not going to let your people go. Your God doesn't impress
me. That was it. That was the problem,
wasn't it? No, I'm God around here. Our gods are supreme. We
don't need your gods. So he went away, and I'm not
gonna go through all the plagues, but you understand how it worked.
All the plagues that happened, they saw fire fall from the sky.
They saw hail fall from the sky that burned. Now explain to me
how water burns. I can't understand that. So it
was hail. He didn't say it was meteors.
He said it's hail. Well, how do you know it wasn't meteors?
Cause God said it's hail. You can look it up. It was frozen
water. It was burning. I don't know. It's what it says.
Then you have the death angel coming through that, uh, took
the life of the firstborn for those that didn't have the blood
on the door. They woke up the next morning. Their firstborn
had passed because they didn't have the blood of pride. We know
all the pictures that are here. We know that that hail falling
was representing what fell upon the Lord Jesus Christ. It was
due us. We know that the death of the firstborn was a picture
of Christ. Us having the blood covering, but him having to sacrifice
his life in the process so that we could be saved. That's the
picture there. They saw all that and Pharaoh
finally let them go. And they saw the Lord's glory
in that. And they get to the Red Sea,
as I've already mentioned, they cross the Red Sea, they go to Mount
Sinai. And now they see this mountain that's on fire, this
dark mountain that's thundering. And God is on this mountain. God is going to give them his
commandments. He meets with Moses as he commanded Moses to come.
And he said, I'm going to give you the commandment, the Testament. He does. So he goes up to the
mountain, but here he says that he, and so terrible was the site. Moses said, I exceedingly fear
and quake. He was trembling. He was trembling. He was shaking. You ever heard
the term shaking in his boots? That's exactly what he was doing.
He was shaking. He might not have been in sandals,
but you understand what I'm saying. He was shaking. He was afraid.
Why was he afraid? He had saw God. He saw the Lord's
promises. He knew the Lord had delivered
him. Why was he so afraid? Because he saw the judgment that
he deserved being a man. He saw God as unapproachable.
by this, I can't approach him and live. But God said to come
to give him the commandment, so he did so. When he came back
down, the scripture says that his face shone so bright that
they couldn't look upon him. He saw the Lord on that mountain.
He saw the Lord, it was through smoke, but he saw the Lord. His
face shone so bright they had to veil his face. What is that
a picture of? Well, if you wanna see the glory
of God, you have to look to Christ. But the moment you look to the
law, the veil covers the Lord's face. He's not there at the law.
He's not at the law. You can't find him in the law.
We don't come to Mount Sinai. Christ came to Sinai for his
people. Christ offered himself up and
fulfilled all the demands of the law. All the demands. He
satisfied God's justice, and he put away the sin of his people
on that day, on Mount Calvary. And God was well pleased with
his darling son. Now Zion is built. Now Zion is
built. Notice verse 29, we didn't read
that far down, we're not going to this morning, but notice what
he talks, our description of our Lord. For our God is a consuming
fire, consuming. When the Lord Jesus Christ offered
himself to the Father, scripture says he was poured out like water,
that his bowels melted as wax, his heart melted as wax. His
soul was made an offering for sin. Why? Because God is a consuming
fire. If he sees one sin upon you,
it doesn't matter if you stole a piece of popcorn, that's a
sin. If he sees one sin upon you, the punishment is death.
Death. This is why we cannot approach
Sinai, but one did on his people's behalf. The Lord Jesus Christ
did for us. He went to where we could not
go and touched the mountain and was not destroyed. Now he can
touch us still yet and not be defiled. He is the intercessor. He is the advocate. He is the
propitiation for our sin. That's what the Lord Jesus Christ
is. That's what he's accomplished. And this is the foundation of
Zion. This is everything in Zion points
to Christ. He's the chief cornerstone. He's
the door to the sheet fold. He's everything. He's the light
that's in the city. He's everything in that city.
This is all about Christ. There's nothing but death to
approach Sinai, but those who are called to Mount Zion, there's
nothing but life. Nothing but eternal life. No,
we don't preach, don't do this and don't do that. That's going
to Sinai. We don't say, here's the moral law, here's the civil
law, do the ceremonial law. You better do this and you better
do that. No, that's just law mongering. You know what we do?
We preach Christ and Him crucified. Don't go to Sinai. You won't
be saved there. You'll die. Scripture says, if
you die in your sins where I am, the Lord says, you cannot come. Cannot come to where I am. No
man can look upon the Lord and live in his sin. Understand this, the offense
of returning to the old covenant, the offense of returning to the
old covenant is the complete and utter discrediting of the
Lord Jesus Christ. It is the denial. It is to deny
that he finished the work. It is to say that he did not
complete salvation. That's what it is to go back
to the old covenant. That's what it is to flee to Sinai. That's
what it is to touch the mountain or try to do something. to gain
God's favor or to get God's attention or to please God in and of yourself,
whether it's before or after the Lord has called you out of
darkness into light. Don't do it. Sinai has nothing but death. This is the warning that's being
given here in Hebrews. We've not come to Sinai, but
we've come to Mount Zion where it is finished. Look to Christ. Look to Christ. going to the first covenant is
to say, I can be my own priest. I can make my own sacrifice.
And that's something scary that a lot of people don't understand
that I didn't understand for a long time. The way that men are taught is
if you sacrifice things, the Lord will bless you. But in order
to do that, what you're doing is you're actually taking the
place of the blood sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. What
a frightening thought that is. But I've done this, and I've
done that. I've sacrificed so much. I don't
do this anymore, and I don't do that anymore. And you're trying
to sit a little higher than your peers. And we try to be recognized
by the Lord, and the Lord says, no. No, all you're doing is going
to Mount Sinai, where there's death. Here's my beloved son
with whom I am well, please hear ye him. Here's Mount Zion where
there's rest and there's hope and there's life and there's
peace. Aren't you glad the Lord said, whosoever will let him
come, whosoever will let him come. Somebody told me, he said,
well, you think you're the only people going to heaven? And I
said, I don't know who's going exactly, but I know that the
only ones that are going are the ones that have made, the
Lord has made them sinners that need a savior. Sinners that need
a true substitute. The ones that believe that Christ
did not die for everybody or he'd be, would not be a successful
redeemer. And it certainly, the ones that's
going certainly ain't the ones that are running to Sinai to
try to fix the problem. It's the ones fleeing to Christ.
They've been made to do so. They've been made to do, they've
been enabled. God has to give the ability to do so. It's no wonder that Paul said
in Philippians, that I might be found in him, not having my
own righteousness, which is of the law, but that righteousness,
which is by the faith of the Son of God, faith of Christ,
the righteousness, which is of God by faith. God does not come
to where we are as sinners and arrest us. Stop us in our track,
breathe life into us. We will live our life trying
to go back to Sinai. All for naught. All for naught. But the good news is if he elected
us into eternal life, we are in Christ. We are in Christ and
we are drawn to Zion by him. And I love that. Shepherd's hook,
the picture of the shepherd's hook is pulling you. Lord, Jerk
me. Lasso me, or whatever. Lead me,
cause me, make me. That's what he says, Psalm 23.
People love Psalm 23. The Lord's my shepherd, I shall
not want. First thing he says, he maketh me. Oh, I love that. He maketh me. Lord, make me come
to you. I can't on my own. He leadeth
me. Lord, lead me beside your still
water. Lord, anoint me. Lord, prepare for me. I can't
do it in and of myself. And if I try, I'm just fleeing
to Mount Sinai. He took the handwriting of ordinances
out of the way that were contrary to us, written against us, and
he nailed them to his cross. When he had by himself purged
our sin, he sat down as the successful redeemer. Zion's complete, the
work is finished. Don't go to Sinai, come to Christ.
Don't move a muscle, come to Christ. The sinner's hope is not in Mount
Sinai, but it's that Christ, who knew no sin, was made sin
for us by the Father, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. Not a righteousness that we have
wrought, that we have gained, that we have merited, but righteousness
that Christ successfully acquired for his people and bestows freely
by his grace. Our hope is in Christ and his
finished work in Mount Zion, the city built by God for his
people in the person of Christ. Now, the next hour is basically
going to be a continuation of this, but I pray the Lord, pray
the Lord bless it. Let's pray. Father, we come before
you asking you to bless this to our understanding, offer your
glory. Lord, leave us not to ourself. We pray in Christ's
name. Amen. Let's take a break.