But read with me Hebrews 12 verses
25 through 27 again. Hebrews 12, 25 through 27. See
that you refuse not him that speaketh. That's our God and
our Lord Jesus Christ. If they escape not who refused
him that spake on earth. That's Moses. Much more shall
not we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven. God, whose voice then shook the
earth. I believe that's, well, I know
it's when our Lord was baptized, when our Lord was walking this
earth. This is my beloved Son. But now
He hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth
only, but also heaven. And this word, this phrase, this
scripture, yet once more. signified, assigned to us, that
God's going to remove everything, the removal of those things that
are shaken, things that are made, that is, this material world,
that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Things that cannot be shaken,
that's the title, that's the subject, things that cannot be
shaken. And here he mentions the earth
being shook, shaken, earthquakes. There have been many earthquakes
in history, spoken of in God's Word. In Haggai and Amos and
Zechariah, apparently there was a great earthquake, great earthquake
in history. In man's history, in modern so-called
history, there have been many earthquakes in this country,
most of them out west. And that clearly tells man, this
clearly tells man that this earth is no continuing place, that
this world is not a stable place. It can be shaken easily. And
you know, you keep shaking something long enough, it'll crumble on
it. This earth can be easily shaken,
crumbled and destroyed. Earthquakes all over this country
and all over the world. Scientists all agree that that
San Andreas fault in California, there's a fault line that runs
for miles. called the San Andreas Fault.
They all agree it's not if, it's when. And they all say it's going
to be the big one. Are people moving? People moving
out of that? No. These earthquakes don't really
put the fear of God in man. God did them. All of them are
of the Lord. They don't put the fear of God.
Now, Scripture speaks of earthquakes. Earthquakes. Look at Matthew
27. Let's look at one earthquake. Something had happened. Now,
this wasn't a localized earthquake. It says the whole
earth shook. There's a difference. There are
earthquakes that happen. If and when that earthquake in
California happened, we won't feel it here in Virginia. But
this was one that happened, the whole world shook. And so this
is what he's saying. Matthew 27, look at verse 50. Jesus, when he cried again with
a loud voice, it is finished. Yielded up the ghost. Behold,
the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the
bottom. And you know what that means,
don't you? If you know what that means, you know how blessed you
are. You know how few people know and how few people care?
Veil? What's that all about? There's
still a veil. You know that? There's still
a veil. It has to be removed. And the earth did quake. The
whole earth did quench. And rocks rent. Graves were opened. Many bodies of the saints which
slept arose and came out of the graves after His resurrection.
And went into the holy city and appeared unto many. That happened
then. It's still happening. When Christ was crucified, the
dead, some dead people lived. And live now, but as a result
of Christ. What Christ did on the cross
shook their earth. and awoke them, quickened them,
brought them from death unto life, from darkness to light.
That's me. That's you, isn't it? Brought
us out of the grave. And we go into the city and the
people and testify. They don't believe Him. A centurion was at the foot of
the cross. He said, truly this was the Son
of God. It shook His earth, didn't it?
He felt it. He saw. He heard. God shook the
earth when Christ was crucified. Psalm 18, real quickly, Psalm
18. If you don't know this psalm,
you need to. This is the psalm of Christ on the cross. This
is powerful. This is glorious. Psalm 18. Look at it. Real quickly. I will
love thee, O Lord. This is Christ. All these words
are Christ. I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. The Lord
is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my God, my strength, in whom
I will trust, my buckler, the horn of my salvation, my high
tower. I will call upon the Lord, who
is worthy to be prayed. So shall I be saved from mine
enemy. That's Jesus, the man. Live by
faith. Here it is. The sorrows of death
compassed me. The floods of ungodly men made
me afraid. The sorrows of hell compassed
me about. The snares of death prevented
me. In my distress I called upon the Lord. Psalm 22. My God, my
God. He heard my voice out of His
temple. My cry came before Him, even into His ear. Then the earth
shook and trembled. The whole earth. The foundations
of hills moved and were shaken. Because God was what? Wrath. Angry. Does God love everybody? No, He's angry with the wicked.
How do you know? Calvary. Does God love some people? Yes. How do you know? Calvary.
They went up a smoke out of His nostrils, fire out of His mouth.
Our God is a consuming fire. You see, it hasn't changed. The
New Testament, oh, He bowed the heavens Verse 9, came down, darkness
was under his feet. Read that for yourself later
on. What a passage. So the whole earth shook when
Christ was crucified. Another one right after this.
Three days later. Three days later. It says, the
earth did quake and the keepers of the tomb trembled and they
began to shake and fell as dead men. When? When God brought Christ
out of that grave. And once more. One more time. God is going to
shake the whole earth. When? When He comes again. Nobody immune from that. Yet
once more, lo, I come, he says in the volume of the book he
has written of me. His first coming, his second
coming. Did he come the first time? Nobody
denies that. Nobody can deny that. Is he coming
again? Oh, in the last days, scoffers
and mockers walk up to him and say, where's the promise of his
coming? What do you mean, where's the promise of his coming? It's
right here. It's there. Every morning you look up there,
out there and see that sun coming up. The son of righteousness
shall arise with healing in his wings, shall get up off his throne
and come back and bring, take his people back with him. A myth,
a wives fable, a Jewish fable, some old, you know, Ignorant
tale? No. Peter said, this is no cunningly
devised fable. We beheld His majesty as of the
only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, John
said. He's coming back. See, we saw Him come the first
time. We saw Him go. We heard them
say, this same Jesus, whom you have seen assin, shall so come
in like manner as you've seen Him come. Peter said, this is
no fable. In the volume of the book of
truth. And His people say, come quickly. Once more, lo, I come. He came, He lived, He spoke.
You know that, go back to our text now, it says He spoke. And
who shook the earth with His voice? Verse 26, whose voice
shook the earth. We say God did. Yes, He did.
God didn't speak out loud, did He, for 400 years after Malachi,
did He? He never spoke. But when our
Lord came and was being baptized by John at the River Jordan,
God spoke out loud. What did He say? He said the
same thing every time. This is my beloved Son. Now when
God speaks, the earth trembles. When God speaks, men say it thunders. It is so powerful. more powerful
than thunder, is it? Nothing that man considers more
powerful, and nothing will get his attention more than when
it thunders. You've been asleep at times,
and the Lord sent a thunderstorm. Oh, boy, you can't sleep through
that. It gets your attention, doesn't
it? But the world goes right back to sleep. And I want you,
every time you hear it thunder, when our Lord said, Father, glorify
thy name. And God from heaven said, I have
both glorified it and will glorify it again. And the people said
it thundered. Evidently, it did sound like
thunder. His voice, that's Psalm 29. His voice thunders. I want
you, every time it thunders, I want you to think He's glorified
His name, He's going to do it again. He's glorified his son. I want you to think he's glorified
his son, and he's going to glorify me and see his glory someday.
When it thunders, don't just say, what a powerful thunder.
When it's lightning, we looked at that last Sunday, didn't we?
All the things that should remind us in this book of remembrance,
this book called Creation, and this book that reminds God of
people that fear him, that think on his name, that meet together.
When the lightning, when the lightning strikes, I want you
to think of him who's going to come as lightning from the east
to the west. Yet once more, one more time,
every eye shall see him. And it says in verse 27, this
is a sign of removing those things that are shaken. Things that
are made are going to be removed. And here's what Peter said. Listen
very carefully. And we need to be always mindful
of this. Brothers and sisters, this is
written in Peter. Turn there. 2 Peter. Turn to
2 Peter. Chapter 3. I tell you to read
all the time. Read Psalm 90. Read Psalm 91. Read this psalm, Isaiah 53. Read
2 Peter 3. Read it once a week to remind
you of what manner of people we ought to be, because these
things are going to be shaken and removed. Look at 2 Peter
3. And you hear this so much, I
hope you don't take it for granted. Like a train going by a house. Look at it. It says they, chapter
3, verse 4, where's the promise of his coming? Everything's continued
like it is, and they're ignorant of creation and ignorant of the
flood, he said. Verse 7, the same heavens and
earth, now by the same word, they're held. God, this thing,
this world keeps revolving everything like it is because God does it. It belongs to him, he's in control
of it. This coming day, the scripture says, he's going to fold it up
like a vesture, done with that. Look down at verse 10. The day
of the Lord shall come as a thief in the night, which the heavens
shall pass away with a great noise. What's that great noise?
Thunder? What's he going to say? He's
here! And the virgins with oil. I've
got to meet him in the air. Or he might say, I told you. I promised you. I'm here. A great noise. Like Rahab, a
trumpet. The trumpet's a sound. Is it
going to be a literal trumpet? Maybe. I hope so. I want to hear
it. Like Rahab. The gospel is a trumpet sound
of Christ who came. Christ who reigns and rules and
lives and Christ who's coming again. That's the gospel saying.
And Rahab heard that every day for seven days. And every day
it just, she got more and more excited. Seeing then, verse 11, all these
things shall be dissolved. What manner of persons ought
you to be? A holy conversation, that is, a life thinking on things
above and godliness not worldliness, looking for and hasting the coming
of the day of God, when the heavens on fire be dissolved and the
elements melt with fervent heat." Everything in it, everything
we have and everybody we know, gone. Gone. There have been some earth-shaking
events. There have been many earthquakes,
but there have been some earth-shaking events through history that cause
people to tremble. Wars and rumors of war. In Matthew
24, our Lord, they asked him, when is the sign of your coming?
And he, read it. Matthew 24 and 25. When's the
last time you read those? Our Lord tells us what to expect
before He comes. So read it. If you want to get
excited, say, when you see all these things happening, lift
up your head. Your redemption draws nigh. Look
up, he said. Look up. You ever ride on an elevator
and everybody, you know what everybody's doing? Every now and then I say something
because nobody talks on the elevator. But they're all looking up, trying
to get to whatever floor they're trying to get to, you know. Look
up. That's what we ought to be doing
all the time. It's a cloudy day. He must be coming. And there
have been wars and rumors of war. Our Lord told about it in
Matthew 24 and 25. He said, these things happen. And one telltale sign, sure sign
of His very near coming was what? When this gospel is preached
all over the world for witness. And that's now as never before. And no corner of the globe that
the gospel is not heard the word of God. So he's coming. There've been
wars. Imagine the civil war. Try to
act, you know, the men that go through reenactments and all
that. And it's, it's, I hear, I haven't seen one. I've seen
them on film, but there's cannons. Have you ever been near a cannon
going off? Imagine having one fired at you.
The horse you're riding on. Try to imagine that, mate. Not
one. Ten or twelve or fifty. BOOM! BOOM! Blood. You talk about shaking your life.
Everything you hold dear. Everybody lost everything. War. Earth-shaking events. National
wars, civil wars, world war. When there was a world war I
and world war II, there was not anybody on this globe that was
not affected. Well, there's coming an event. He said once more. Now that's not to mention all
the calamities and disasters and hurricanes and tornadoes
and all these things that God sends, like in Egypt, remember? Ten plagues that God sent, the
last being death. And the children of Israel recognized
all of these as being the hand of God, the judgment of God.
Both the judgment of God and the goodness of God. Wasn't it?
It was a judgment of God against an unbelieving world, Egypt,
and it was a goodness of God to His people showing them, I'm
taking you out. Wasn't it? Every one of them
saw it like Rahab. They heard it. It shook Egypt. But it was exciting for God's
people. No fearful. And all of this clearly tells
us that God is not like men say He is. God is as He says He is. That's
right. God is as His Word says He is.
God is and God does exactly what God wrote. That's right. There's
no change. I change not, He said. And therefore,
you sons of Jacob are not concerned. He said, I'm going to shake everything
and everyone except things that cannot be shaken. Alright, now let's talk about
that. Things that cannot be shaken. man's foundation, man, his belief,
his faith, his beliefs are easily shaken, aren't they? It's all
founded on what? It's earth. And God keeps shaking
it. I told you about that worm farm
I had. Well, now I threw them away. I didn't need them anymore. Well,
now we've got a compost bin. Anybody have a compost bin? We
paid big bucks to throw rotten stuff in this big barrel. It's
good for your garden, you know. Keep you, you know, make you
healthy. Okay. Anyway, we bought one,
and we throw all our garbage, dead stuff, dead plant matter. All right? We throw all that
in there. Rotten stuff, stinking stuff, awful stuff. You don't even want to go near
it, do you? Well, it's full of worms. That's
all worms eat. Worms don't eat good food. They
eat rotten food. All right? And they turn it to
dirt. Every bit of that turns to dirt. Well, every now and
then, I've got to go out there and rotate that thing. And I'm
thinking, what are these worms thinking? Is there one single worm? in
this big round globe that I'm turning, it stops and thinks,
who's doing this? Shaking my world. Not one. Not one. I've never had one worm
say, hey, hey, help. Not one. But lo and behold, that's us, isn't it? Dead thing. Man, I was going to say, and
the only reason that any of us call on God, acknowledge God,
call upon the Lord, is because our Lord Jesus Christ came. God
was manifest in the flesh. He said, I'm a worm. He became
the bone of our bones and the flesh of our flesh. To reveal
God to us. To do, to die for us. Of the earth earthy, to die.
to bring us, to give us this new birth, to turn us from worms
into butterflies and mount on wings of eagles. But you know, man's foundation
is founded on his earth. It's so easily shaken and his
facts and all that he believed was easily shaken. You know that
all that, listen to this, you'll laugh at this when you think
about it. In professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
Romans 1.18. You've got all these archaeologists,
geologists, sociologists, all these ologists, all these studying
dirt. You know, all the artifacts,
all that man believes about God or whatever is based on bones. Yeah. There's no God. How do you know? Let me see if
I can shake your faith, okay? The world says there's no God.
Kate, because they dug up some bones. And they looked at these
bones and said, there's no God. No, it's a man. This was a man who lived three
zillion years ago. And he evolved. And it takes
more faith to believe that stuff than the truth. find a bone, and all it is is
a cow bone, and they've got a blank check sent by the government
to tell us that there's no God. So here's this bone, and this
is what is it? We don't know what it is. It's
a man. And since this was a man, God didn't create man. Man created
himself. Man came from a tadpole into
a monkey, and then bones and he looked like an ape. All of
man's findings are based on bones. Have you ever thought about the
absurdity of that? Dead things. There's no God. This Bible is a hoax. Everything
you're doing is in vain because we found some bones. That's it. Are you going to believe them?
Are you going to believe that nonsense? I tell you some bones
they have never found and never will find. And they've tried,
believe me. They've tried to find, you know,
they talk about the Holy Grail, Ark of the Covenant. I hate,
I hate terms like that. I hate it. I hate it. I hate
it. Tried to find the Ark of the Covenant. God wouldn't let
them find that. Trying to find Noah's Ark. They'll never find
that on Mount Ararat. God told them where it was. They
still can't find it. He's not going to let them do
that. They worship it. That's what they do. Shroud of
Turin is supposed to be the grave cloth of our Lord. No, no, no,
no, no, no, no. That's not his grave cloth. They're not going
to find that. They're not going to find any bones over there outside
of Jerusalem and find out and say this is Jesus of Nazareth.
They're not going to find that. See, God's people believe a living
Word. We have a living God, a living
Lord, a living Word. This is His voice. This is not
a book full of words. It's God's voice. And God's people
hear Him. He speaks to them. How do you
know God? I'm not out to prove God. God doesn't prove Himself.
He doesn't. He doesn't prove Himself to anybody.
He reveals Himself. And once he reveals himself to
you, once he opens blind eyes, you see clearly, don't you? Don't
you love that Proverbs 8 and 9? It's all clear to him to understand
it. Once you have an understanding, the Son of God has come and given
us an understanding that we may know Him that is true. Who is
it? God. That was God that walked
this earth. Things that cannot be shaken,
the foundation of God standeth sure. Psalm 11 says, If the foundations
be destroyed, what shall the righteous do? Now, here's the
foundation. God is. God is our Creator. How do you know? Open your eyes. Quit looking at bones. And look
at that sky. Look at that sun. Look at the
heavens and the earth. The claries of glory, the firmament
show this anywhere. Day after day, others speak.
Night after night, the moon, the star. Men give man more amazing,
creative glory than they will God. Man makes some amazing thing,
doesn't he? Well, who made man? These computers
didn't invent themselves, did they? I love that illustration
that this man was talking to an atheist, an evolutionist,
and the man had a watch on. And the believer said, that's
a beautiful watch you have there, sir. May I see it? And he said,
sure. And he gave it to him. He said, wow. He said, where'd
you get that? He said, Swiss made, handmade,
Switzerland. Really? So the man who made this
really knew what he was doing, and it's obvious. Evolution has
said, yeah, it's true. Can't you see the workmanship,
the beauty of it, and the wonder of it, and it keeps perfect time
down to the very millisecond. It's obvious that somebody wise
and a creator and a brilliant man made this. And the believer
said, I don't believe that. I don't believe that. I believe
it. Here's what I believe. that three
billion years ago, floating in space were jewels and mainsprings
and stems and watch bands and crystals and gears and all that.
And it was a boom! And that's how you got that watch. Man said, you're a fool. He said, no, you're the fool
to see all this. And it just happened. I see man being in darkness.
Man's a rebel. Brother Kelly, man doesn't want
there to be a God. Man believes what he wants to
believe. And he makes up everything. And people love it. People love
lies. They don't love the truth. If there's a God, that means
He made us. That means He can do with us as He pleases. If
He's our owner, that means He can do with us as He pleases.
Shall not I do with my own what I will? God said, yes, He does
and He will. And men don't like that. Man
wants free will. No, man doesn't have free will.
God does. Man's not in control of his own
destiny. That's what people want. I want in control of my own destiny.
I am so glad. Aren't you a thankful believer
you're not in control of your destiny? I thought I was for a while,
twenty-some years, and if it hadn't been God's mercy and grace,
I would have destroyed myself. There's a way that seems right
to man. Whatever man thinks is right
is wrong. It ends up in destruction. And
you rebel against your Creator, you're going to be destroyed. That's the fact. God is. And once God reveals himself,
speaks to you through this living word, his voice, you hear his
voice, you're born of God and now you believe God. Faith's not of yourself, it's
the gift of God. It's according to his work, mighty
power, the working of his mighty power. There was a loud noise,
all right, when you first began. It was the voice of the gospel. The Word of God is. Here it is. Here it stands. Here it stands. Oh my. Men have tried. Let me give you three things
and I'll close. Here's what cannot be shaken. Skeptics and agnostics and people,
unbelievers all over the world, they say Christianity is a mere
invention of man. An opiate, Karl Marx, who so-called,
admitted so-called communism. He said Christianity and religion
is an opiate of the masses, meaning people drug themselves with this
belief that there's going to be a benevolent person come and
get them and take them out of their troubles, and that makes
them feel better. Or Pentecostalism, boy, they're
on a drug, aren't they? People are getting all hyped
up. They can't drink, so they get wild in religion. It's all false. But that's what
he said. It's an opiate of the people,
a foolish desire for a happy hunting ground. And here's three
things that you cannot shake. Jesus Christ. What are you going to do? with
that man that lived here 2,000 years ago named Jesus Christ.
Who is he? They keep writing articles about
him. Who is he? If Christianity is the mere invention
of men, how do you explain Jesus Christ? His existence in history
nobody can deny. He lived in this world. He was
born in Bethlehem. He walked this earth, died on
a Roman cross, and witnesses, hundreds and hundreds, claim
he rose from the grave. And by the way, religion is just
in darkness even as the evolutionary world. People all over met in
a cemetery this morning. Why? That's where bones are. Why would you meet there? Why
don't we meet in the cemetery? Because when our Lord arose,
they said, He's not here. What are you doing here? He told
you. Go where I told you to go and
meet together. Bones. Bones. That's all dead
religion is. His existence cannot be denied
without force or bribery, without arms or money. Without an earthly
kingdom or great possessions, he left a mark on this world
as no other person in all the history of the world. And nobody can not think about
him. Our calendar, it's a wonder people hadn't tried
to change A.D. and B.C. on the calendar, isn't
it? Tried to change everything, he
and she, let's get rid of B.C. The men are forced, when they
look at the calendar, B.C. Before Christ. A.D. Anno Domino in the year of our
Lord. Can't get rid of him. He never wrote a book. No library
could contain all the books written about him. Never wrote a song. He's been the theme of more songs
than all the songs in the world put together. All other religious leaders came
to live. He came to die. Completely different. All other
messiahs chose their followers rich and powerful and influential.
He chose the poor, the despised, the rejected. All other messiahs
say, follow me, I'll show you the way. Christ said, I am the
way. Follow me, they say, I'll show
you the truth. Christ said, I am the truth.
All other messiahs say, follow me, I'll show you how to live.
Christ said, I am come that they might have life. I am life. He that hath the Son
hath life. He that hath not the Son hath
not life. He said, you've seen God, you've
seen me. What other messiah ever said
that? He said, all other messiahs,
Messengers of God, He said, I and the Father are one. He arose from the grave and that
means all everything He said, everything He did is true. How do you explain Jesus Christ? What do you do with Him? I've
got someone in my family that denies all this. To deny this book to deny what
I've been preaching today, what my father preached for so long
and what so many men do preach today, is to call Jesus Christ
a liar. Now let me ask you, you who believe
him, can anything or anyone shake your belief that Jesus Christ
is God? Is there anything that can happen?
Anything that can be said, anything that be written, anything, any
so-called proof, any bone they dig up that can make you reject
this one who came, the Lord Jesus Christ. Is there? The Bible. The Bible. Christianity is an invention
of man. How do you explain this book? It dates back 3,000 years, 3,500
years, written by 40 different men over a period of 1,500 years. It took 1,500 years to compile
this book. How many other books were that
long in making? 3,500 years, 1,500 years in writing, 40 different authors,
66 books, Most of the men did not know
each other, never collaborated, never collaborated, never tried
to get their stories together. What do you say? We've got to
say the same thing, like the false witnesses. They couldn't
agree. Forty different men, sixty-six books, fifteen hundred years. They didn't collaborate. It tells
the same exact story in every jot and tittle down to the detail.
How many times do I say to you, who wrote this book? The men don't see it because
God doesn't reveal it to them. But John, once he reveals it
to you, like, look, there's nothing more marvelous
in this life than God's book. Nothing. This was written by men who are
not scholars, written by men who are not authors, not literary
giants, written in a language that nobody hardly speaks anymore,
Hebrew, that nobody knows. And men have tried to destroy
it. Powerful men have tried to destroy it, explain it, the smartest
men who've ever lived tried to explain it away, and here she
stands, the Word of God, unshaken, unmoved, unchanged. Word of God. That tells us clearly that God
wrote this book. Where are the books of men printed
500 years ago? Huh? Where are they? This is
read by Americans, by Chinese, by Japanese, by German, by every
language known to man. Where are the books printed in
every single language on the face of the earth? God had it
done so that everybody would be accountable. He's that good. The Bible tells the truth about
man. That's why men don't like it.
The Bible tells the truth about God. That's why men don't like
it. That's why they try to disprove it. You can't. You can't. It doesn't dignify, justify,
gloss over man's sins, imperfection, inability. It shuts him up as
a sinner in the hands of an angry God needing mercy. And that mercy
and that grace and that forgiveness and that salvation is found in
one way. That's what this book says. No
deviation from that. No gray area there. Man's a sinner. Total depravity is not a doctrine. It's a fact. It's the foundation
of the faith. Man's dead. God is God. God became man that
dead men might live. And lastly, the results of true
Christianity. Talk about born again, people
laugh at that. People scoff at that because
so many fools claim they have been born again. It just makes
a mockery of that. Born again Christians. Who said
that? Who said born again? Who first
said that? Jesus Christ. You must be born
again. Jesus Christ said that. That's
true. It's true. How do you explain
what happens to people, truly happens to people, when the gospel comes And they were dead in trespassing
and quick in walking. There's no explanation for it
except God. And my pastor said this, you
look at a map of the world and compare countries where men are
believers and where men are infidels and you'll see in those countries
where the Bible is, where the truth is, human rights are recognized,
morality, there's laws that enforce human rights and governments
subject to the people. And compare the homes, he said,
of true believers, homes where God's people are compared to
those who are not. You'll see people of honesty
and integrity and love and care and marriages at last, children
and subject to their parents. How do you explain all that?
Unshaken truth. No matter what man says, no matter
what man does, no matter what happens, no matter what comes
to pass, the foundation of God stands
here. Christ is that foundation. The Word of God is that foundation.
God Himself is the rock upon which we stand. And if you're
on that foundation, if your faith is on the rock, You'll not be
moved. Nothing can shake you. Amen.