Let's take our Bibles and turn
with me to the book of Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12. I'd like to look at verses 25
through 29, but before we begin, let's ask our Lord's blessing. ask you this evening as we come
before you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing that
our only acceptance before you is in him, we ask your blessing
upon your word, Lord, this precious word that endures forever. I
ask you that you would bless the preaching and the hearing
for Christ's sake. Amen. The Apostle Paul, as he has been
preaching to these Hebrews, I believe it was Paul that wrote this epistle. But the writer has been writing
to these Hebrews, and we have to understand that these hearers
grew up under a system that was ordained of God. The law was
given by God. It was given to Moses. And they lived under this God-ordained
system. And then, with the coming of
the Lord Jesus Christ, it was revealed Openly, He was the fulfillment
of all that was pictured in the law, in the sacrifices, in all
of the furniture, in the tabernacle. It was all concerning Him. And so as Paul is preaching to
these people in tenderness, mercy, compassion, He's setting forth
the revelation of what they have come under for all these years,
being careful to teach them, knowing that Almighty God must
instruct them in the truth of what they're hearing. Now, He
set forth, last week we looked at this, He, the Apostle Paul,
through the inspiration of God's Spirit, taught these Hebrews
that they do not come to God through the keeping of the law.
That law that they came up under. They don't come to Mount Sinai. That mountain where God Almighty
gave that unbending law to Moses. The writer told him this is not
how we approach God. But he is to be approached in
the person of the Lord Jesus Christ by faith revealed to his
church, Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem, the city of peace. Now this city, Zion, the church,
the bride, of which we that sit tonight, believers, are a vital
part of, built up in Christ, set upon Him the foundation.
We as lively stones the Scripture sets forth. This is the city
built in and by the Lord Jesus Christ, our foundation. And Paul revealed that this city
is made up of the general assembly, the church of the firstborn,
the bride of Christ. Now there are some that have
gone on to be with the Lord. There are some that are on this
earth right now and behold Him by faith. Those that left this
world, not beholding Him by faith anymore, but beholding Him by
sight. Actually looking upon Him. Seated with Him in the heavenlies. Seated with Him right now. Amazing
thought that God's people absent from this body and present with
the Lord. To see Him and like Him be made like Him. And know Him as we're known in Him. Complete. Eternally filled with the joy
of knowing that we shall ever be with the Lord. Now, knowing
that He's the way... Now listen, as Paul the Apostle
was speaking to these Hebrews, I pray that the Lord give us
ears tonight to hear. I pray that Almighty God teach
us tonight. I need to hear. what's about
to be preached right here. I need to hear it. You need to
hear it. I need for God Almighty to speak to my heart. I want
to hear this tonight, not in word only. There's some things
I understand in my head. I do. I understand. I understand
in my head, I know for a fact, total depravity. But do I come
tonight as a totally needy sinner. I need to hear. I need to eat. I need to eat. I understand unconditional
election in my head. I've read it in Ephesians 1,
2 Thessalonians 2. I've read it. I know what the
Scripture says. But do I strive to make my calling
and election sure? I know Christ laid down His life
for His sheep. I've read that in John 10, 15.
He said He did. I laid down my life for the sheep.
Did He lay down His life for me? Did He put away my guilt? I know the Spirit of God is going
to irresistibly call His people. Am I truly willing in the day
of His power to come and come, He that cometh to me. Do I find myself with a desire
to come afresh? Lord, if I'm kept, I'm going
to be kept by You. Lord, let these words be real
to me. Let these words be life to me.
I need to hear tonight. I know, I know that there is
many that have left this world, but that was their last day,
and they just left. They were gone. I may be gone
before tonight is over. If I am, may God teach me through
this message tonight. The Apostle says in verse 5, that ye refuse not Him that speaketh." Take heed. Listen up. Make sure. See that you turn not aside. See that you depart not from
Him that speaketh. speaketh." That word you know,
that E-T-H, means that it's continual. Continual. There is a continual
speaking by the Lord Jesus Christ. The Scripture bears that out.
I know that He's the mediator of the new covenant. That covenant
that is all of grace. That covenant of mercy. that
gives man no credit, no honor, no glory, no praise
on the work of his own salvation. He that speaketh. The Scripture says in Romans
1, he speaks in nature. I mean, the heavens declare the
glory of God. Everything that grows, everything
that dies, everything that speaks that man is dying, God must give
life. He speaks in the conscience of
men. Every man, every woman has got
a conscience. They know right from wrong. He speaks according to His blood. The Lord says, when I see the
blood, I'll pass over you. But listen to me. Listen to me. He speaks right here in this
word. These words are life. This is God's Word. Miraculously and powerfully kept
from being destroyed. These words that endure forever. These words divinely set forth. that we teach when I study. This is what I'm trying to do.
I'm not trying to come up with something novel. I don't want
to come up with kind of a good way, like a trickery type way
to kind of slip around. What I want to do is I want to
take this Word and by the grace of God give you The meaning,
the exact meaning. This is what I'm called to do.
To tell you what God says. And to study these Scriptures.
And this is what God's Word sets forth. And He sets forth this
as a command. All men, everywhere, are commanded
to repent. If a man or woman doesn't repent,
whose fault is that? Theirs. Theirs. If they do repent, who gets the
glory? God. Thankful is He who calleth
you who will also do it. See that you refuse not Him that
speaketh. He's talking tonight. Paul the
Apostle said that we beseech you in Christ's stead. We're
ambassadors for Christ. These are God's words. I'm a
messenger. I'm just a mouthpiece called
of God to say, this is how God speaks. He speaks through preachers
that He called. And they speak as mouthpieces
for God Almighty. So when we hear these words,
refuse not him that speaketh. He spoke at Mount Sinai, given
the law. He spoke through the prophets.
The Lord Jesus Christ came physically into this world, proclaiming
His gospel. And He's speaking right now,
ever living, to make intercessions for His people Refuse not him
that speaketh." Don't refuse the gospel. Don't refuse the
truth through unbelief. Don't neglect the commands of
God through indifference. Faithfully hearing the message
of God Almighty and salvation in Him. Faithfully studying His
Word and commuting with Him. In prayer, refuse not. That's what it means. If you
have a Bible, read it. Before you read it, ask God's
direction. Ask Him, Lord, speak to my heart.
Oh, I'm telling you, it's the easiest thing, this old flesh
to read something, read three or four verses and you're thinking,
ah, let me start over. Have you ever done that? Let
me start over. I don't even remember what I
read. Refuse not Him. Lord, help me. Lord, speak to
my heart. 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. For if they, those
that hurt Him, at Mount Sinai. Them. Or they that heard Him
when He spoke from the mountain. You remember what they said when
Moses came down, told them, said, this is what God said. And they
said, all the words of the Lord we shall do. We're going to obey. We're going to obey. And I'm
telling you, buddy, it wasn't long. They're in the wilderness. They're starting to argue against
Moses. Did you bring us out here to
kill us? We'd have been a whole lot better off if we'd stayed
in Egypt. We had leeks back there. We had all kinds of stuff. And Moses prayed, God have mercy
on them. For if they escaped not, And I know they didn't escape,
because the Scripture says many of them, their carcasses fell
in the wilderness. If they escaped not who refused
Him that spake on earth, those that heard God speak, they heard
the voice of God. When He gave Moses the Ten Commandments,
then He wrote them with His finger in tablets of stone. Those that
refused God's message by refusing Moses. Remember, if they refused
the spokesman of God, God said, you refuse Me. He that refuses will not hear
those that I send. Don't hear Me. Much more shall
not we escape if we turn away from Him that speaketh from heaven."
Now, let me clarify something that you already know. No true
believer shall ever turn away, leave, forsake that which God
has established in his heart. Why? Because God gives them eternal
life. He said they're never going to
perish. They're never going to perish. I give them life. They're kept by the power of
God through faith. So they're not going to turn
away. But I tell you who he's talking
to. He's warning those that profess to be believers. He's warning
people that sit under the sound of the gospel and then leave. Those wayside hearers Stony ground
here is that just spring up quickly. I like that. I like that. But when the pressure for the
sake of the gospel comes, it's just not worth it. Not worth
it. I tell you, I don't think I've
ever seen such an open and obvious revelation of that stony ground
here as I did a couple of months ago. When a group of men was
going to have a meeting on a Wednesday night and decide whether or not
they wanted any more grace preachers to come. And one of them got
up and said, well, I can tell this is going to split this church.
And it's just not worth it. It's not worth that to me. When the pressure for the sake
of the gospel, and men will say, you know what, it's just not
worth it. That's just too much cost for
me. If it's going to cost me, if
it's going to cost me my family, if it's going to cost me my friends,
if it's going to cost me my job, if it's going to cost me this,
it's just too high a price to pay. Oh, refuse not Him that speaketh,
for they escape not who refuse Him that is fake on earth. Much
more shall not we escape if we turn away from Him that speaketh
from heaven. To refuse Him and to take anything
over Him is death. You're not going to escape. I'm
not going to escape. Look at verse 26. "...whose voice
then shook the earth. But now he hath promised, saying
yet once more, I shake not the earth only, but also heaven." Christ, who is the Word of God. Scripture sets forth that God
came down. I'll tell you who spoke. The
only one that ever speaks. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself,
God's Word, spoke at Mount Sinai. And His words, the Scripture
says, shook the earth. Exodus 19.18 says, and Mount
Sinai was altogether on smoke. On a smoke. Because the Lord
descended upon it in fire, and the smoke thereof ascended as
the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly."
That mountain shook physically. But it also shook because of
the glory of God's Word, God's Law. That's when the people said,
Moses, you go up and talk to God. Don't let God talk to us,
because if God talks to us, we're going to die. It was a fearful thing. An awesome thing. It shook. But, He promised, yet once more,
He said, I shook the earth thin, yet once more, I shake, I rock,
I agitate, I throw into tremor or fear. I shake not the earth
only, but also heaven. He shook the earth on Mount Sinai. He shook the earth. The Scripture
says, I'll read this to you. It's in Haggai 2, 6 and 7. He
shook the earth when the Lord Jesus Christ came. Haggai 2,
6 and 7. 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. I will fill this house with glory,
saith the Lord of hosts." He shook this earth when the Lord
Jesus Christ came. He shook the very foundations
of those that opposed Him. He shook the very foundations
of those that despised Him and exposed them for what they were
and said to those Jews and Pharisees and scribes that despised Him
and hated Him, He told them, He said, you're just blind leaders
of the blind. You that have all your phylacteries
and you love to stand on the corner and you love to be called
rabbi, rabbi, master, master. You love to make these long prayers
and you like to wait until somebody's coming by. Say them louder. Sound more pious. Say all your prayers in public.
Sit down in front of a bunch of people. Hold hands. Make a big show and bring attention
to yourself. He said, you've got your reward. He shook the very foundation
when He came in the flesh. And they hated Him for it. Because
if He continues, the Romans are going to come and take away our
place. They're going to move us out.
We're going to be nobodies. He shook the very foundation
of those that believed in salvation by works. And I'm telling you,
When you proclaim that salvation is all of grace through faith,
and that there is absolutely no merit, no worth, that you
added nothing to your salvation, that God Almighty saves His people
totally, apart from any works. It's not by works of righteousness
that we've done. It's according to His mercy that
He saved us. When you take away a man's work
from him, Would you take away that he thinks, at least I responded. I walked down the aisle. I took
the Lord's Supper. I joined the church. I was baptized. It's all me. You take that away
from him. And I'm telling you, there's
a nature in him that will bow up and the Scripture declares,
and he does, they hate you for that. You're taking away their
God. You take away their God. But
according to God's Word and God's promise, He said, I shook the
world. I shook the earth one time. Sinai. He shook the very foundations
when the desire of all the earth, the Lord Jesus Christ, the desire
of His people, when He came, He shook the foundation of Judaism
and false works religion. But He said once more, The latter
part of 26. I shake not only the earth, but
also heaven. And thanks be unto God that the
Lord was pleased to reveal in the next verse or two what He
meant when He said that. Because you know, if you just
stopped right there and He said, I'm going to shake heaven too,
you're thinking, what does that mean? You're going to shake heaven? But thanks be unto the Lord,
He gives us the explanation right here. And He said in this word,
verse 27, yet once more, here's what He's talking about. He signifies
the removing of those things that are, or the margin says,
may be shaken as of things that are made, that those things which
cannot be shaken may remain. Let me tell you what He said
in just simple terms, and then I'll... I'll try to elaborate
on it. What he's saying is this. I'm
going to shake this earth and heaven too. Heaven being the
realm of His kingdom, His people. I'm going to shake all of it.
And everything that can be shaken is going to be shaken. Everything
that can be removed is going to be removed. But those things
that can't be removed, when I shake them, He said when they're done,
they'll still be there. That's what He's talking about.
I'm going to shake heaven too. Almighty God, Is He going to
shake and remove everything that's physical? Everything that's in
this world that's temporal? Everything that's perishable?
He's going to destroy everything on this earth that can be destroyed. All false religions, lies, deceptions. He's going to burn this earth
up. And I'm telling you, everything that is not founded upon the
foundation of the Lord Jesus Christ. All false religions,
when men stand before God and start pleading their own merit,
Matthew 7, we've looked at that so many times, Lord, we, I, me,
my, I never knew you. He'll shake the very foundations
of all of the lies that's being told, all of this flood of filth
that comes out of the mouth of the serpent that we just looked
at last week, that goes after Satan trying to destroy God's
elect, deceive God's elect, and the earth that takes it all in
and helps the woman And believes it. And raises up all these huge
places and they can't get the people in there fast enough.
Just threatened to those things of trickery. Those Gospels of
deceit and trickery and games and going to have cowboy shows
and cowboy church. Cowboy church. I've never heard
of that until recently. Y'all ever heard of that? Cowboy
church. They have little arenas and horses and stuff. Games and
circuses. All that mess is going to be
burnt up. I'm going to shake. Once more,
I shake not only the earth, but I'm going to shake heaven. Almighty
God, the chastening power of His grace and mercy, He's going
to try and prove His people They're going to go through tribulation.
You live godly in Christ Jesus, you're going to suffer tribulation.
But all of these chastisements that are sent by the Lord, you
know what this is? It's God shaking heaven. His
people, His bride, Mount Zion. His people that possess eternal
life. And after Almighty God in mercy,
the ones that He loves, and He shakes them. and proves them,
and shows Himself to be faithful, and them to be in Him that cannot
be shaken. He said, I'm going to shake heaven
and earth. And verse 27, And this word yet once more signified
the removing of those things that are shaken as of things
that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore, we receiving a kingdom
which cannot be moved, let us have grace, or let us, the margin
says, hold fast, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence
and godly fear. God's people. they've received
a kingdom. It cannot be moved. Why? Because it's founded upon Him
who is eternal. The eternal God. That kingdom
of grace. A kingdom of works? It's not
going to stand. It's not going to stand. It's
going to be burned up. But that kingdom of grace, one that's
been given, Totally according to God's Word, that shall never
fail. The Father's will and good pleasure
to give the kingdom unto His children, sons by God's grace,
heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. That kingdom that
cannot be removed is founded upon the merit of the Lord Jesus
Christ. The one that the Father said,
this is my beloved son. I'm well pleased with Him. Sit that in my right hand. Till
I make your enemies your footstool. He's going to shake this heaven
and earth. He's going to shake it. And everything
that's left is going to be eternal. And based upon that truth, let
us have grace. Let us hold fast by the grace
of God Kept. Encouraged. Taught. Taught through
His Word. Taught by His Spirit. Whereby
we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. Let
us by a willing heart, made so in the day of His power, offer
unto Him the sacrifice of praise. Serving Him. Serving Him. Believe Him. Believe Him as we
honor His Son, holding fast the gospel of grace by God's grace,
asking Him, Lord, keep me. I know You're going to keep Your
people. Lord, keep me. Lord, I know You're going to
teach Your people. Teach me. Why? For our God is a consuming
fire. Jealous. He's a jealous God. He's a jealous God. You're jealous
for those you love. He's jealous in the matter of
His Son. My Son, you hear Him. He's jealous
in the matter of worship. The assembling of ourselves together.
The honoring of Him. He's a jealous God. He'll have
no other gods before Him. Don't put anything ahead of Him.
only approached in His Son, having all honor and glory and praise
from His people in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We know
who He is. He is a consuming fire, and He
has consumed the guilt of His people in the fire of His wrath
and put away all of our debts by the glorious blood of His
Son, approaching Him Without a mediator is total consumption
in wrath. He said, look unto me and live
all ye ends of the earth. Refuse not him that speaketh. Did you realize that Almighty
God, this very evening, through the mouth of a feeble, feeble,
frail, Lump of dust. The Apostle Paul says we have
this treasure in earthen vessels, didn't he, Carl? Earthen vessels.
Oh, refuse not Him that speaketh. Almighty God is going to shake
heaven and earth. I'm telling you, looking unto Him, trusting
Him, calling on Him, seeking after Him for mercy. You do that,
I'm going to tell you something. There's life there. And He'll
never leave you, never forsake you. For Christ's sake. Amen.