Turning back to Hebrews chapter
12, last week we began a message called The Church of the Lord
Jesus. And the interesting thing is,
is that I never did get to the portion of the scripture that
actually refers to the church of the Lord Jesus. So, we'll
finish up what we started last week. This is something that
should cause our hearts to rejoice, really. I often use that phrase in prayer,
as God strengthened our hearts with grace, and that comes from
the book of Hebrews. It's good that our hearts be
strengthened with grace. In fact, grace is the only thing
that's going to strengthen our hearts. Everything else is going
to bring them down, grind them into the dust. But this is one
of those texts of scripture that if the Lord enables us to truly
lay a hold of it, or maybe a more accurate way to express it would
be, if this scripture lays hold of us, as much as us laying hold
of it, it lays hold of us. It will strengthen our hearts.
Now, last week we began there in verse 18 and we noted what
an awful day, and I don't mean awful like, you know, boy, we
wish that day hadn't happened, a day that would inspire awe
and terror That day when God, even in just a token form of
his presence, descended on Mount Sinai and gave the law to Moses. And Moses was not, at least I
don't think at this point, an easily frightened man. But he
said, I'm trembling, I'm shaking in my boots. And whatever went
on that day, the Jews themselves said, we don't want to ever hear
from God again. And that may be the wisest things
the Jews ever said. You know, before Moses went and
got the law, he told them that's what he's going to do. And they
said, you know what their boast was? You go get the law. You
tell God we'll do whatever he says. That's kind of like Peter
when he said, Lord, I'll go to the death with you. I won't deny
you. But boy, once they heard God's voice, they didn't want
to hear it anymore. People say, I want to hear from
God. Really? Really? Now, here's the thing. They said, we don't want to hear
from God. They told Moses, you go up there. and let Him talk
to you, and then you come back and tell us what He said. And
we want to hear from God, but we want to hear from God through
a mediator, don't we? And we've got a better mediator
than Moses. We've got the Lord Jesus Christ. There's one God
and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Through Him, we can safely hear
from God, and through Him, we can safely approach God. Anything
else? You've come to a mountain that
can be touched. Storm, darkness, blast of a trumpet, terrifying
things. Now this whole book was written
in order to encourage Jewish believers who were being persecuted
by Jews, by their family members, because they gathered with those
who believe that Jesus is the Messiah. And they weren't going
to the synagogue anymore. Of course, the synagogue wouldn't
have them. The synagogue kicked out anybody
that believed that Jesus is the Christ or Jesus is the Messiah.
Nonetheless, they were suffering persecution. It's mentioned in
Hebrews. They lost property, lost their
standing in society. Some of them even lost their
lives. Stephen was stoned to death on this very issue. And they were being tempted,
some of them, to forsake the assembly of the believers and
go back to the synagogue. And I'm sure that the devilish
logic that went on in their mind is, it's the same God. And while
I listen to them prattle on about this and that rule and argue
this and that, in my mind, I can say, this refers to Jesus Christ. And I can quietly and secretly
approach God through Jesus Christ and stay out of trouble. Well,
the Lord Jesus Himself said, if you won't confess Me before
men, I won't confess you before the Father. If Jesus means so
little to you, that you will hide from men the fact that you
trust him? That means you're more afraid
of them than you are of approaching God apart from Christ. Well, he wanted to encourage
them. And he says to them, you have
not come to a mountain that can be touched. And by that, you
say, well, wait a minute, I thought they weren't allowed to touch
it. They weren't allowed to, but they could. And what he means
by that, this is, it's a mountain in this world. And though we
don't know which mountain it is, if we did, to this day, we
could go over there and touch it. We could walk on it. So since we know he's making
a contrast now when he says in verse 22, but you have come to
Mount Zion. Now this Mount Zion, there is
a Mount Zion over there in the Middle East, and you can go over
there and touch it. But the very fact he mentioned
Sinai as a mountain that can be touched, and he's contrasting
it to Mount Zion, this is the Mount Zion that can't be touched. In that very point is something
important for you and me. Quite often, the Scriptures and
Scripture writers will use one sense, one of our five or six
senses, depending on which scientist you listen to. They'll use one of them to represent
all of them. The one most commonly used is
C. Except a man be born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of God. Because the kingdom of God cannot
be seen, naturally. It can't be felt, can't be heard. None of the five senses. This
is why it's so silly when atheists say, well, there's no proof for
God. And when they say there's no proof, what they're talking
about is scientific proof, which means I can't see, I can't hear
him, I can't touch him. You know, I'm tempted to go,
well, duh. He's not here in the sense you're talking about. He exists outside of our reality. He's the creator of our reality,
so He's not a part of it. Now, I know He made Himself a
part of it through Jesus Christ, but still, Jesus Christ is in
the heavens. You can't see Him. And if you'll
think about it seriously, friends, There is nothing of all the things
that you and I believe with regard to God and the gospel. There's none of it that can be
sensed naturally in any way. You say, well, I've heard people
say, I'm not sure what you say, but I've heard people say, oh,
when I went to that place, I could feel the Holy Spirit. And in
my typical cynical fashion, I want to say, well, what did he feel
like? Is he fuzzy? What is he? Now, we have emotions,
but we can't ever trust them. We've got to keep Martin Luther's
little poem in mind. Feelings come and feelings go,
and feelings are deceiving. My warrant is the word of God,
not else is worth believing. Should all my heart feel condemned
for want of one sweet token. I'll trust him who's greater
than my heart, whose word cannot be broken. Now, I look for and
I enjoy, I maybe hope for, I enjoy it when I come here and I feel
full of joy because of what I'm hearing. But you know something? Whether
or not I am filled with a feeling of joy is irrelevant to whether
or not I belong to God. Generally speaking, when we say
things like, I don't know if I'm really saved, what we're
saying is, I cannot detect anything that would indicate that I have
been saved. Of course not. What's been done
to you in the work of salvation is a spiritual work, not a physical
one. And there will be times when
God will testify to you, Paul says, the Spirit bears witness
with our spirit that we are the sons of God, and if sons, then
heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ Jesus. The
Spirit does testify of that. In every gospel message, and
that's why I said gospel message, every gospel message, the testimony
of the Spirit to our sonship, it's there. And if we are believers,
it will hit its mark in our heart, in our spirit, in that part of
us that's been born again. But that's not the only part
of us that is making use of this brain from which all of our thoughts
and feelings flow. And there are some times you
couldn't be made to feel good about anything. It's just so. We have come by faith. Paul says we live by faith, not
sight. Once again, sight being used
to indicate all of our natural abilities to discern things.
We live by faith. We've come to a Mount Zion that
we can't show to anybody. Why? It's not here. Not here
in the sense of time and space. This reality, like this, it's
not here. That's why it's so silly when
people make pilgrimages. I make a pilgrimage to the Holy
Land. Why? I can understand going there for historical curiosity,
that's fine. I mean, I've been to Washington,
D.C. and seen the monuments, lived
close to there in early childhood. I've been to Philadelphia. I've
seen the Liberty Bell. That's all great. But seeing the Liberty
Bell didn't make me more American. It did not confirm my position. I was glad I got to see it. That's
all. Nothing of what we believe involves
the things we can see. And brethren, we are not helped
by the things that we can see. Oh, when I'm at that place, I
feel so much closer to God. Really? Is God there in a way
that He's not in other places? Now, there's one place where
there is a special presence of our God. Where two or three are
gathered together in my name, says the Lord Jesus, there I
am. And of all the reasons we should
be eager to meet like this, it's that one. I remember Spurgeon
saying, a believing husband and wife sitting at their kitchen
table is a little church. Two people meeting in the name
of Christ, and Christ is there. We've come to Mount Zion. Now,
we dealt with that much of it. That's how far we got last week.
Come to Mount Zion, which to every Jew, Mount Zion was the
epitome of things. The idea of Mount Zion was wrapped
up all of God's goodness to the Jews. But let's move on now. You have come to Mount Zion.
Now we occasionally sing that song, we're marching to Zion,
and I'm not going to strike it off the hymn list simply because
it's not completely accurate. If we are believers, we're not
marching to Zion, we're there. We're there. Now I know what
they mean. They're talking about, we're on our way to heaven. Fine,
I suppose heaven is the perfection of what Zion indicates. And that's when we will actually
see, hear, experience, within whatever kind of senses we have
at that time, we will see that which up to that point we've
only been able to believe. But this Mount Zion, we are already
there. to the heavenly Jerusalem, the
city of the living God. I was raised in a religion and
it unfortunately is kind of a dominant position among Christendom that's
constantly wrapped up with whatever goes on over in Israel. It's an end times view that's
called dispensationalism. And the interesting thing to
note is nobody ever brought it up until I think it was the middle
1800s, somewhere in there. And as Brother Mahan used to
say, if it's true, it isn't new. And if it's new, it isn't true. But it has captivated everybody,
and there's been books and movies written about it. Even Hollywood
likes to make movies based on that concept. Trouble is, every
time a little something happens over there, people open up their
book, oh, prophecy's being fulfilled. And the same things were being
said when I was a kid, which was a significant amount of time
ago. I remember one of the preachers saying, I'm not looking for signs,
I'm listening for sounds. Meaning that he thought what
they referred to as the rapture of the church. He was so convinced
that it was about to happen, he was no longer looking for
the signs of the times, he was listening for the sound of that
trumpet. Well, I could Fault them for that, but people
won't believe anything other than what's told to them, and
that's what had been told to them. But brethren, that Jerusalem
over there, what does God want with that
city? Really? Or any other city built
by the hands of men It says, Abraham sought a city whose builder
and maker is God. I heard that word builder better
translated architect. A heavenly city. It's described
in symbolic form there in the book of Revelation. I saw the
heavenly Jerusalem coming down out of heaven. That's the Jerusalem you and
I live in. It is, you could say this, it
is the church. And we'll get to that and what
the church is in a minute. But it is the church. It's a
symbolic picture there. And the church, it's not something
that arises from the earth. It's something that comes down
from heaven. Because the church is designed
by the God of heaven, it is built, so to speak, well the foundation
was made when the Son of God came down from heaven, and it's
being built stone by stone as the Spirit of God comes down
from heaven. and works in the hearts of God's
chosen people through the ministry of the gospel, opens their eyes
to where they see invisible things. This is the church you and I
are part of. This is the city of our citizenship. I'm really mildly ashamed it
has taken me so long to get to the point that I really don't consider myself,
for any other than legal purposes, a citizen of anywhere other than
this city. And part of the reason is, quite
frankly, I just become disgusted with any of the governments of
any states, cities, countries, whatever.
I was raised to be a patriotic person. And let me say, I'm thankful
to God this is where I live. If I've got to live in this world,
here's where I want to live. But my citizenship is not here. If you're a believer in Christ,
your citizenship is not here. It's not as though we don't care
what happens here. But we ought to have much less
concern about it than worldlings do. The old spiritual, this world
is not my home. I'm just a passing through. Or as one person said in the
last 10, 15 years, whatever, I heard it probably within the
last five years, Believers are not worldlings trying to make
it to heaven. They are citizens of heaven trying
to find their way home. Boy, I wish I could lay hold
of that and live like that all the time. Quit fretting about
it. It matters much less what goes
on here when we realize this isn't home. Heavenly Jerusalem, the city
of peace. It's what the name Jerusalem
means, city of peace. Oh, there is peace in Christ. Therefore, being justified through
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
One of the signs of the times that people want to refer to
is wars and rumors of wars. Understanding when our Lord said
that, He said, it's going to be just like the days of Noah,
there's going to be wars and rumors of wars. Tell me a time
when that hasn't been true. And I say this because now with
what's going on over there in the Mideast, you know, I've got
these I've got a lot of people that are my Facebook friends
because I'm a preacher. I don't even know who they are.
But their post comes across. Oh, Jesus is sure to come soon. See what's going on? This is
fulfillment of Scripture. I don't think so. I don't see any Scripture about
what's going on over there. I know this. God never reestablished
Israel in Old Testament days unless there was first a spiritual
revival. It didn't begin by a return to
the land and then a spiritual interest. In their captivity,
He stirred up the hearts of the people and then brought them
back. That's not what's going on over
there. That's all political stuff. And hope it's not a place for
opinion about the political stuff. I'm just telling you, there's
nothing going on over there that I see is a fulfillment of prophecy. Israel is a nation. They were
made a nation at Mount Sinai. Until then, they were just, they
were an ethnicity in the sense that they all came from one ancestor.
They didn't get along. In fact, they never did get along. God made them a nation at Mount
Sinai. And he undid that at Calvary. For once the new covenant was
ratified by the blood of Christ, and that's what the book of Hebrews
teaches us, the old covenant being fulfilled was set aside. And that meant that Israel as
a nation set aside. And it's written in one of the
sermons of the apostles that the promises of God made to the
fathers were fulfilled by the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead. He didn't say most of them. He
just said the promises made to the fathers. So whatever promises
God made to the fathers, the patriarchs, I guess, Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, they are fulfilled in Christ. It's done. We have
not come, nor do we have any spiritual interest in that city
over there. We are in the heavenly Jerusalem,
the city of the living God. You go over there to that Jerusalem,
what do you see over there? Well, where the temple of the
living God used to be, there is a mosque. And the closest that any Jew
can get to that temple in which their God resided in a token
presence that they referred to as the Shekinah glory, the closest
they can get is that place called the Wailing Wall, which isn't
all that close. And they stand there and they
pray and they take these little pieces of paper with prayers
in it and stick it between the joints of the stones. That's sad. Now think of it. I'm not putting them down. Friends,
that's where you and I'd be if God didn't show us grace. Can you imagine your prayers
to God being so feeble? They're nothing but a piece of
paper stuck between two stones that surround nothing that you're
interested in or have any hope in. There's a mosque where the temple
was. And even Christians flock over
there. I say Christians, professed Christians,
they flock over there to see the tomb of the Lord Jesus. Another token of death. I have no idea whether that's
really his tomb or not. And I imagine whoever it is makes
money off of that place doesn't care. If they'll come and look
at it and put some money in the tour guide's hand, that's good
enough for them. And if you don't think that's
to the tomb, just point where you think it is and the tour
guide will take you there. City of the living God. Not the God
who came alive in this world, and we'll die with this world,
the God who is life itself, the God from whom flows all other
life, in Him we live, move, and have our being. He doesn't exist
because we think He exists. We exist because He thinks we
exist. He's outside the time and space
reality that we exist in. He's the creator of our reality.
Everything we have comes through Him. He cannot die. He is life
itself. And we live in His city. Well, I know one thing about
this Jerusalem. If the living God lives there, nobody else
who lives there dies. Think on that a minute. Nobody
in this Jerusalem dies. Let's move on. There's so much
that can be said. You've come to thousands and thousands of
angels in joyful assembly, whether that means the angels of heaven,
or as the Greek word more broadly means, simply messengers, which
would refer to the men that God has chosen to preach the gospel,
go out and declare the gospel. Either one of them is true. I
know this. Our Lord said, There is joy in the presence
of the angels over one sinner that repents. You know, we think that we're
a little church, and as the world goes, we are a little church. But do you realize how many occasions
rejoicing in the presence of the Father have happened through
this congregation. Every one of you who's repented
and believed God, heaven celebrated when that happened. More than
we did. More than you did. Because they
really know what it's mean and you know why? because the angels
were also there on Mount Sinai. And from viewing Sinai, where
the glory of God and all His justice was revealed and all
His strict demands, they saw that. And they had enough sense to
realize this is not a covenant of life, this is a covenant of
death. Cursed is everyone who does not
continue in every point of the law to do it. But then they heard of that other
covenant, the new covenant ratified by the blood of Christ, and they
rejoiced, and they rejoiced more than you and me because they
understand our situation better than we do. They saw their brothers
and sisters or whatever you want, other angels fall following Satan. And they've seen the wretched
state they went into and there was none to redeem them. And
then they saw us come under a similar condemnation, but they saw a
redeemer come. And on Mount Zion, there he is
rejoicing. Thousands of angels in joyful
assembly, not people saying, we don't want to hear anything
more. They say, tell me the old, old
story. Say it once again. I want to hear what my God says
in his holy city on Mount Zion. I want to hear that. to the church of the firstborn,
whose names are written in heaven. One of my Facebook friends put
up a post here a couple of weeks ago, maybe just this past week,
I can't remember. But it said, which do you think
is more important to God, Israel or the church? It's a good question,
because to look at the Facebook post, you'd think that Israel
was God's primary interest. And I wrote back, the church of the firstborn,
whose names are written in heaven, a group that transcends space
and time, nationalities, ethnicities, race, all the things that divide
men, this church transcends that. Every member of this church,
every member of this church, the Church of the Firstborn,
they are members because of their connection to the Firstborn. That's why it's called the Church
of the Firstborn. Now, I would never name a local
church the Church of the Firstborn. Why? Well, we have a group like
this. And I certainly hope that every
one of you who professes to believe actually does. And I'm not saying
that I'm thinking, well, some of you I don't know about. No.
It's not as though I'm up here thinking, yeah, I know that guy. He's probably not. No, I'm just
saying I know how it goes with groups of people, groups of professing
believers. There's generally some wolves
among the sheep or goats that have wrapped themselves in sheepskins. And so there's no local assembly
that would have the right to call themselves the church of
the firstborn. No, this church transcends denominations. It transcends all the divisive
things that men bring up. It is made of those joined to
what Paul called the firstborn of all creation. And unlike the
Jehovah's Witnesses who say that proves Jesus Christ was the first
created thing, no, firstborn is a position. the firstborn
of the household. Usually, that meant the son that
was first to be born. That was the normal pattern.
The interesting thing is when you look through the lineage
of our Lord, how many times did God skip over the first son born
in a household in establishing that natural lineage of our Lord
Jesus Christ? Isaac was not Abraham's firstborn.
Ishmael was. Jacob was not Isaac's firstborn,
Esau was. Joseph was not. Judah was not Jacob's firstborn. I believe Reuben was. And yet our Lord came through
the tribe of Judah. Firstborn, that title went to
whichever of the sons of the head of the household
became the new head of the household. That's the firstborn. And so
when it says that our Lord Jesus is firstborn over all creation,
it means that Jesus Christ as a human being, as God's only
begotten Son, has been made the head over all things for the
church. He's the boss of everything. He didn't look like it when he
was here, did he? He certainly didn't look like
it. When they beat him half to death, stuck a crown of thorns
in his hand, put a fake king's robe on him, beat him about the
head and shoulders with a stick, said it was his scepter. And
he was bloody and beaten to the point that it said, so his visage
was so marred, marred more than any man, you couldn't even hardly
tell he was a man. And Pilate said to him, Don't
you realize I have power to have you crucified?" And our Lord
said to him, you have no power but the power that heaven gives
you. He'd already told his disciples, don't you realize I could just
ask my father, he'd send six legions of angels, I'm out of
here. Paul says, not that he was the
victim of death, he submitted himself to death, even the death
of the cross. Not even death had power over him. And when
he rose from the dead, He dies no more. And God seated him in
his right hand. And I know as God, he's always
been the Lord. Now as man, he is Lord over all. All authority in heaven and earth
has been given to me, he said. That's a lot of authority. He is the firstborn. In one way, it can be determined
whether or not you truly know this Lord and love Him and believe
Him as this. How do you feel about the fact
that God has put the Lord Jesus Christ in charge of you? Every one of His brothers is
delighted. Not a one of them. is squabbling over who gets to
be the firstborn, who gets to be in charge. It's interesting, I went to a
Baptist school, I was raised in a Baptist-like church, and
of course you get to Baptist College, and okay, you gotta
learn about Baptists, and then they have their form of government.
Really now, is government what the church is about? I realize
you've got to have some organization just because you've got a group
of people. But still, it seems like everybody's interested.
Who's in charge? Christ is. That's who's in charge. Church of the firstborn, whose
names are written in heaven, and it doesn't matter when in
the chronology of space and time that name was written. The church
started on the day of Pentecost. Not according to this. It includes
everyone whose name is written in heaven. Now, that's the way
this translation puts it. The word actually means registered,
which would, I mean, you know, the sense of it, your name's
written in heaven. Same word that was used when it said Joseph
and Mary went to Bethlehem. because that's where Joseph's
family came from, to register for the tax. Well, I guarantee
you they wrote his name down. But here's the thing. Folks,
you know, in churches, they make it such a big deal about names
written down. You know, we've tried to keep
it real informal here about church membership. We might have to do a little
something because of the legal connections, the unfortunate
legal connections that churches have in this world, to protect
ourselves against those who would undermine churches and give legal
definition to what a member of this church is. But I'll tell
you what a member of this church is, so far as spiritual things
are concerned. Anybody who can sit here and
listen to what we're preaching and tolerate it, I assume they're one of us. Why? I don't think goats can handle
the gospel for very long. Yes, once in a while they do.
And it's surprising to see when folks go from here and go to
some other message, having been here so long and seem to be happy
here for so long. And we just have to scratch our
heads about it, but for the most part, the preaching of God's
grace It doesn't taste good to goats. That's not goat food.
That's sheep food. Had some folks, twice now they've
come, and both times it was for three weeks, and after that it
was done. And both times, after three weeks, they wanted to know
what you had to do to become a member. And both times, I told
them essentially, don't worry about it. Just keep coming. I said, there's nothing that
I would do for one of the, quote, official members that I wouldn't
do for you. And that's true. The folks want to know, who's
on the roll? Well, I know this. When Judgment
Day comes, one of the angels ain't going to say, all right,
go down there Get in the secretaries of the corporation, get in there
and get out their book where all the members are written down.
We're going to see who gets in heaven. Sorry, you never applied for
membership. So not a good day for you. Written in heaven, written down
by the Lord of heaven and earth. not by angels, not by Saint Peter, by Christ himself. And if he
wrote it, nobody's going to unwrite it. I like this place better than
Mount Sinai, don't you? You've come to God, the judge
of all men. Wait a minute. That sounds like
you kind of threw a wrench in the middle of all of it. Now
wait a minute. On Mount Sinai, did anybody come
to the judge of all men? No, they were told to stay away.
Why? Because if they approached, they
would die. Now hang on. We, with confidence, come right
to the throne of the judge of all the earth, knowing we'll
be accepted. We don't fear to approach Him,
because we approach Him in Christ. Christ has been accepted. Christ
has been approved. He's there at the right hand
of the judge of all the earth. Anyone that comes to that judge
in the name of Christ, his judgment is already over. It was accomplished
in Christ. There is no condemnation to that
person. You can approach the judge freely
and happily if you're not guilty of a crime. It's only the criminal
that dare not come into the presence of the judge and every believer. And in the Gospel, we're bold
to say this, regarding every believer, there is no crime of
which he's guilty in the court of heaven. He can come right
up to the judge, and according to the apostle Peter, you know
what he calls the judge? Father. Peter says, seeing you
address as Father, the judge of all men. That's pretty good. To the spirits of righteous men
made perfect. Talk about righteous men, righteous
people. How are they righteous? They're
righteous by the gracious imputation of righteousness to them through
Jesus Christ. They aren't righteous because
of what they did. They aren't righteous because of any ceremonies
they kept. They're righteous because God,
the judge of all, imputed is the theological word. It's actually a word in accounting,
comes from accounting. That's why sometimes it's translated
reckon, you know, because you reckon things up or reconcile
your bank account. It's reckoned to them. Like there's
a ledger, complete with debits and credits. But the ledger,
as filled in by us, is nothing but debits. And God, by the work of Christ,
takes the blood of Christ, blots out the debits, and enters one
huge credit, righteous. Well, don't you got to try? Well,
sure, we'd like to be righteous. If you understand anything about
what it is to be righteous in the sight of God, you'll never
think you've accomplished it. And you'd never present any of
your attempts of righteousness to him as though he's going to
say, OK, I realize that that's not 100 percent, but you know,
I wasn't bad. You know. You're just human, you know?
No. We have a perfect, spotless, flawless righteousness charged
to our account or credited to our account. And it's there as
though we ourselves did it. And none can blot that out because
no one but God has access to that book. And we have spiritual fellowship
with those And when it talks about righteous
men made perfect, I don't know if he means those that have already
gone to glory and been perfected to be like Christ. That's the
way I tend to think it. But I want you to consider this.
Spiritually speaking, you and I are connected to all of God's
elect in all the ages of the earth up till now and even the
ages to come. For we are all connected in Jesus
Christ by whose righteousness we have been justified. And you
and I here, in whatever pitiful ways we can, in the weakness
of our natural selves, we're worshiping God, and we're singing
praises to Him, we're opening up this book, trying to understand
it and all that. But you know something? They're
doing exactly the same thing in the presence of God. They
just do it better. And from our spirit that's been
born again, and where that nature of God has been stamped, we are in fellowship with them
even now, not consciously, and with every other believer in
this world. See, this church has never had
a member added or subtracted since the sovereign God wrote
their names down before the world began. This church, we've had additions,
we've had subtractions. And that's the way it'll go till
this church doesn't exist. But not this church, not the
church of the firstborn. Let me try to finish this up.
We've come to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant. Oh, brethren, I wish I could
enter into this through the week as much as I do when I'm standing
up here, but oh, what rest. What joy. What comfort. and all the turmoil of the world,
and all the turmoil of our minds, and wondering even with regard
to this gospel, do we have it right? Are we being deceived
in all this? Here is the place of rest. We have come to Jesus, the mediator
of a new covenant. And while we might not, and I'm
quite sure do not, have everything right, He does. And I'm not getting into the
presence of God faultless and full of joy because I got it
all right. I'm getting there because He
got it all right. A new covenant, a covenant Of
all the things it says in there, this is the one that I latch
on to the most. Their sins, their iniquities, I will remember no
more. Brother David Plager says, what
we cannot seem to forget, God refuses to remember. into the sprinkled blood that
speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. When Cain killed
Abel, God said Abel's blood cried out from the ground. And what
Abel's blood cried out a righteous and just call for vengeance against
his brother. You can't fault the testimony
of the blood of Abel. And God reaffirmed it after Noah
came out of the ark. He said, if a man sheds the blood
of another, then by men shall his blood be shed. That's justice. Can't argue with justice. Oh,
the blood of Christ speaks something better than that. Is it better
than justice? Yeah. Father, forgive them. They don't know what to do. And the blood of Christ can send
that message, because the blood of Christ is
answering the cry of the blood of Abel, even as it calls for
mercy to the sinner. Now folks can post the Ten Commandments
in their homes. Churches can put it in their
churches. You can't say it's wrong. It's part of the Scripture. There's none of the Scriptures
that would be unfit to post. But you ought to ask why. Because
generally what people post for you to see is the things in which
they glory. The things in which they boast.
I haven't a word to say against what God said on Mount Sinai,
but I heard the command, don't touch that mountain, so I'm not
going to. There's another mountain, a beautiful
mountain, beautiful for situation, the scriptures say. Mount Zion,
the joy of the whole earth. Anybody that's got real joy,
that's where they got it. Live in any city you want, I
live in the city, the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the great
king. I'm rejoicing with thousands
upon thousands of angels. I am in communion and fellowship
with all my brethren who have gone before, with all who are
present now, and with all who shall come. I have for my mediator the Lord
Jesus Christ, and I have blood that doesn't call for my death,
but demands that I be alive. Five bleeding wounds he wears, received on Calvary. They pour
effectual prayers. They strongly plead for me. Forgive, forgive, they cry, nor
let that ransomed sinner die. Well, to God be the glory.