Always good to be among you.
Good for me, anyway. And I pray that, indeed, the
Lord would give us a blessing. If you'll open your Bibles to
the 12th chapter of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 12. Now the basic theme or purpose
maybe would be better way to put it. The purpose of the book
of Hebrews is to encourage Jewish believers who had been suffering
persecution because they worshipped the God of their fathers through
Jesus Christ. Because they believed that Jesus
is the Messiah, the Christ. and they had been put out of
the synagogue, they had, some of them lost all their property,
they were snubbed, put out of families, and there
was a temptation, as you might well imagine, to think to themselves,
well, we are worshiping the same God, we're just worshiping him
with more light than we had before, And it would be much easier if
we would simply go back to the synagogue and they can go ahead
with, I mean, do what they do at the synagogue and we can go
to the temple and all this, knowing in our hearts all along that
Jesus is Messiah and Christ is all. But this would be, to do
such a thing as an answer to persecution, would be to sin
willfully after we have received the word of truth. That's what
is meant, I believe it's in chapter 10. But this whole temptation
that they had to go back, this is what the writer of Hebrews
was referring to when he says, don't forsake the assembling
of yourselves together. Don't go back. It's interesting,
the word synagogue, means to lead together or bring together.
And of course, the church means to be called out together. And
so there is a lot of similarity even in what purpose was served
by both kinds of assemblies. But there's no Christ in the
synagogue, at least at this point. There was no Christ in the synagogue.
Christ was in the church, was in the assembly of God's people. to forsake that and go back was
disastrous. Now, in order to encourage them,
in order to give some power to his exhortation, he begins in
verse 18, and we'll read here in just a minute, but in verses
18 through 24, He contrasts what they had left
but were being tempted to return to, contrasts that with what
they had in Christ. Now, let's begin reading here
in verse 18. For ye are not come unto the mount that might be
touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and
darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, And the voice
of words, which voice they that 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 as 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." Now in these words, Hebrews gives us the character
of that old covenant. And I doubt that there ever was
a day before that day or since that day, so awesome and so terrifying
as the day that God descended on Mount Sinai and delivered
his law. The Jews didn't realize what
an awesome day it was gonna be. They said to Moses, you go talk
to the Lord, you tell him whatever he says, we'll do it. And then
when the Lord showed up, their response then was, we don't ever
wanna hear from him again. You go and find out from him,
but you know, we don't wanna approach him. People say, I want
to hear from God. Be careful. There is a safe way to hear from
God. But it seems like encounters
with God in this life generally leave a person worse off with
regard to things in this life than he was before. But we have this description
of a mountain that can be touched And they weren't allowed to touch
it, but they could. And this is an important point we need
to just, at this point, to take note of. He described Mount Sinai. That's a mountain. You can go,
and it's still there. We don't know where it is, but
it's there. And if we could figure out where
it is, we could go over, we could still touch it. They weren't
allowed to. If they did, they'd die. They
didn't have to go to the top of the mountain. God descended
at the top of it. They didn't have to go clear
to the top of the mountain. To die, just touch the mountain
at all, you'd die. So they could touch it, but they
weren't allowed to. And then there was speaks of the mountain that burned
with fire. And despite the fact it was daytime,
it was blackness, darkness, and a tempest. I recall within a
few years after I moved into Iowa, and I had to get accustomed
to entirely different weather patterns there. But one time,
my parents were visiting, and we were standing in the backyard
of the house looking west, and the blackest cloud I have ever
seen in my life. And it just seemed to me it couldn't
be more than 100 feet in the air. And it just come rolling,
coming across the field behind us. And I felt like I was going
to get smashed. You know, well, it had to be
something like that. Even worse, you know, sounds,
a trumpet sound. I don't know. It must have been
terribly loud or it wouldn't have bothered them. And voices,
words spoken. In fact, I don't think there'll
be a day so terrible as that one till the day of judgment.
And the reason that that day will be equally and even surpassing
in its terrifying aspect is this. They share a lot of the same
character. It's God arriving without a mediator. Now you think
about that for a minute. Now Moses was a mediator, but
not a very good one. Moses was terrified. Moses has been tried in every
point, like the other Jews, and was as big a failure as all of
them. And yet he's the mediator. And they had to, it was from
a distance, but still they had to confront God in His holiness,
His righteousness, and justice. And that's what Judgment Day
is. And to do that without a mediator is a terrifying thing to think
about. Now, as we, you know, these introductory
remarks about the religion that they had come out of, the religion
God had saved them from, all of it characterized by that single
day, when God revealed himself really in a very attenuated way. I mean, God didn't come out in
the full blaze of his glory and it would have destroyed the universe. It was a small token of himself. But as we read through that and
think of the characteristics of that day, to whatever degree
the religion a person is involved with is like that day, to that
degree, they are departing from the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, there was nothing wrong
with that day. Let's be careful that, you know,
we'd say we're free from the law, and I'm certainly glad But we don't find any fault with
the law. The law finds fault with us.
And actually, the covenant that God made for Mount Sinai was
a perfectly good covenant if you had perfectly righteous people
to make it with. As the scriptures say, God found
fault with the people, not with the covenant. The problem with
the covenant, it was weak in the flesh. And what that means
is for that covenant to bring about any blessings, it depended
on the natural flesh of a human being being able to satisfy the
demands of the covenant. You can build a real strong house,
but put it on a shaky foundation that's gonna fall down. And there's a lot of religions
and a lot of religions that call themselves Christian. They sound
a whole lot like what we just read in verses 18 through 21.
They hold people in bondage through
fear. They keep them terrified under
a sense of judgment. Now the gospel comes through
and says things like there is no condemnation of them who are
in Christ. Consequently, we have the right
to ask any It's self-proclaimed gospel preacher. If he's coming
to those who profess the gospel of Christ, they believe it. And
yet the preacher is trying to bring them under a sense of condemnation. We have a right to say, now,
wait a minute. There's no condemnation. That's
pretty clear. Why are you trying to sneak some
in? But there is this contrast. Beginning
in verse 22, but ye have come unto Mount Zion
and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. We have come somewhere. He said,
you've not come to a mountain that can be touched, but you've
come somewhere. Now the first thing I want to
point out here is He says, you have come. Now we believe in
the sovereignty of God's grace. We believe God chose whom He
would save. He sent His Son to redeem them
and sends His Spirit to call them. But don't ever allow that
to make you think that people do not come. to Christ. We say it's all of God, and I
understand that, it's absolutely so. But we are not to take the
blessed truths of God's sovereign grace and use that as an excuse
to not seek the Lord. You know, we might be real happy,
you know, or tend to like to quote No man can come to me except
my father which sent me draw him. And that word translated
draw there would better be translated dragged. It's like drawing a
plow. When you draw a plow through
the dirt, believe me, it's not just trying to woo the plow through
the dirt. You're pulling it hard. And that's
true. No man comes to the father, excuse
me, to the son, unless the father drags him. But they do come if
the Father drags them. And so we have come. And one of the things, and I
say this to the young people here, because I don't want you
to misunderstand this. Now, you have been given a big
advantage over children who are raised in homes where mom and
dad don't know the gospel. And they have to go to churches
where the gospel is not preached. And you may listen to Drew and
the other men in here that preach, and the guys like me that come
as visitors, and you hear about this gospel, don't ever get the
idea that you are saved simply because your mom and dad come
to this church and bring you and you grew up in this church. Do you want the forgiveness of
sins? You must come to Christ for it. Do you want eternal life? You
must come to Christ for it. But He says you have come. And
He says you've come to Mount Zion. Now, when He described
Mount Sinai, He didn't describe it by its name. He said you have
not come to a mountain that can be touched. Now that mountain,
Mount Sinai, that can be touched is Contrasted with Mount Zion
and though he doesn't say it what he means at Mount Zion that
can't be touched Now what's the difference Mount
Sinai's of this world That's why you can touch it The Mount Zion he's talking about
is not of this world and Any more than the city of the
living God that he mentions, or the heavenly Jerusalem. Every time something happens
over there in the Mideast, there's a good many professed Christians,
you know, who are about ready to go over there and put on white
robes and wait for the rapture. Or they say, I remember them
telling me as a kid, oh, they've already got the marble quarried. It's in Indiana. And they're
going to build that temple again. And then Jesus is going to come. No. And as I prepared for this
evening, it was confirmed to me, and I was raised in that
religion. How come I know? I'm not saying
they won't rebuild that temple. I just guarantee you the glory
of the Lord is not going to fill it. And God will never sanction
the offering of those sacrifices again. That's done. It's done. But here's the reason. That religion
had to do with things that can be touched. Now often the scriptures
will use just one of our senses to indicate all of them. Most often
it's sight. We live by faith, not by sight. But it doesn't just mean seeing.
In other words, he's saying we live by faith, not by anything
that we can discern with our natural senses. And when you
think of it, what is there about our faith that you can point
to? that you can go touch, that you
can go show somebody. Say, well, I believe God. Fine,
show him to me. Yes, but I've got this Bible.
Well, you know, I believe what's written in here, but this Bible
is not my hope. So I believe in Jesus. Well,
there was a time you could touch Jesus. Can't now. Oh, but I have a feeling in my
heart. So do I. Sometimes I think it's
a feeling in my heart. Turns out it was pizza. It's a little indigestion. Now, I've
heard people say, oh, I went in that church. I could feel
the Holy Spirit. And if it wasn't that I had a
lot of love and affection for the person that said that to
me, I would have said, what did he feel like? Was he fuzzy? What is he? Now, the gospel affects our emotions. We may have emotional experiences,
but that emotional experience is a response to the gospel.
It's not the gospel. And you can have the very same
emotional responses to anything. I was, well, I think when you
and I were talking, I can't remember, but I was talking to somebody
about, you know, church services these days and in the, you know,
the big mega churches and things like that. And I said, you know,
if you would take a picture, a video of the worship services
of many of these mega churches, but no sound, and then take a
video of a rock concert, no sound. You wouldn't be able to tell
the difference. Now I'm not saying that because it's rock music,
I'm just saying it is a big show is what it is. It's things that
can be sensed. We have come to something that
cannot be detected at all by the natural senses. That's why
the Lord told Nicodemus, You must be born again in order to
see, that is, to perceive the kingdom of God. You need a spiritual
nature that can detect things that this fleshly nature cannot.
When the unbelievers of this world say, well, prove to me
what you believe. Say, well, if I could prove it
to you in the way you mean prove, it wouldn't be worth believing.
Really. We are talking about the things
of a God who exists outside of time and space. And we cannot even conceive of
that in our natural minds. Try to think of anything without
a reference to time and space. You just can't. People say, oh,
our God's real big. I know what they mean, and I'm
not going to tell them not to say that, but it's more than
that. Big means taking up a lot of space. He doesn't take up
any space. He created space. He's outside
of it. He's eternal. We normally think
of eternal meaning an endless succession of moments. Well,
not for God. There are no moments for God. There's no time. So how does
something exist without time? I don't know. But he does. He created time. We have come to Mount Zion, an
untouchable mountain, a spiritual mountain. And it's also described
as the city of the living God and the heavenly Jerusalem. Quite
often, and maybe it's the case all the time, when the scriptures
use the word heaven, it's not talking about some literal place
right out on the edge of the universe. You know, it says that
Jesus Christ ascended unto heaven, but he was received into a cloud. I don't think our Lord ascended,
you know, What, the universe supposed to be nearly 14 billion
light years across? I don't think he ascended for
seven billion light years, got to the edge of the universe and
stepped into heaven. I think the cloud surrounded
him, because really then he was just gone. So where is heaven? I don't know. I don't know. I'll leave that to God to figure
out. But I know this, you can't get
there in a rocket ship. You can't get there by any means
we could even imagine. It's not of this creation. The city of the living God, the
heavenly Jerusalem. Now there's an interesting concept.
By the heavenly Jerusalem, do we mean heaven? Well, the book
of Revelation says, I saw the new Jerusalem coming down out
of heaven. And once you look at the description
of it, it's not heaven, it's coming out of heaven. What is
it? It's the church of the living
God. That's what it is. It's us. It's God's temple. And we have come to that. We are part of that. We are part
of something. People keep saying, I'm going
to heaven. Well, in a sense, heaven's coming
to us. Heaven's coming to us. But we are citizens of the city
of the living God. One of the things that, or a
quote that I've heard, and I don't know where it came from, if you
do, And the person who said it is a false prophet. Well, I'm
just, you know, even false prop. Someone said blind squirrel finds
a nut once in a while. So we'll just consider it that,
but I thought it was a great statement. It says, we are not
now talking about believers. We are not citizens of the world
trying to make our way to heaven. We are citizens of heaven trying
to make our way through this world. As the years go by, in my mind,
I am less and less a citizen of this world or any place in
this world. I wish I could say that was altogether
spiritual. A lot of it has to do with just
a complete disgust with politics. I don't want to admit I'm a citizen
of anywhere. But I do know this. Paul said
our citizenship is in heaven, which means we ain't home. C.S. Lewis said, does not the fact that I cannot
be satisfied by anything in this world evidence that I was made
for another world? He's one of those guys, I don't
know whether or not he understood the gospel, I'll leave that to God.
But he got that part right, didn't he? Believers can be content
in this world because content means, okay, I'll live with the
way things are now, but we'll never be satisfied here. Like
Abraham, we live in tents. We move around. We are not digging
footers, pouring concrete, trying to make a permanent home here. And then it says, we've come
to an innumerable company of angels. Now this is a really
unfortunate verse division. The word translated general assembly. And it actually, if you just took
the words apart, the Greek words, it means all the marketplace.
Panagora. Maybe you've heard people talk
about the Agora as the marketplace and pan means all, so the whole
marketplace. But what it came to mean, instead of just the whole marketplace,
it was when everybody came to marketplace because it was a
festival day. So it wasn't even talking about
a place so much as what was going on there, a joyful assembly. And what it says, you take out
that verse division, it says, you come to an innumerable company
of angels in joyful assembly. There is joy in the presence
of the angels over one sinner that repents. And there has been
millions of them repent. Now there was an assembly at
the bottom of the hill, Mount Sinai. There was no festival
going on there. Not when God showed up, no joy. But we have come, and it says
innumerable, the word is myriad. It means thousands upon thousands
of angels in joyful assembly. And why shouldn't they be in
joyful assembly? They should be in joyful assembly
for the same reason we should be. Christ is on the throne. They saw things that must, you
know, Peter taught, I believe it was Peter said, angels desire
to look into these things. You know, don't get the idea
angels know everything. They don't know everything any more
than we do. Imagine, I mean, and again, I don't know what
heaven is like, but they saw God, the Son, become flesh and
dwell on the earth. And they watched that, all that
that we read in the gospels. They saw him die. That must have been very mysterious to them. And
it should be to us. But in a sense, they also saw
that for a time, somebody wasn't home. Remember, our Lord was born here,
but this was not his home. It was his world, but it wasn't
his home. Can you imagine what it was like
when he came back home? I like watching those TikTok
videos and the reels and stuff, and my favorite ones have always
been when someone who's been off to war comes home. Wives, moms, dads, children. What a day it must have been
when Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came home. And they have been celebrating
ever since. And we are among them. It says, you've come to this. And then you come to the church
of the firstborn, which are written in heaven. The Russellites who call themselves
Jehovah's witnesses, but are not. They say this proves that
he's, you know, he was a created being because says he's the firstborn. This doesn't mean he was the
first one born. Firstborn is a position in the household.
It's the one who has the preeminence. Generally speaking, it was the
first one born, but there are some notable exceptions to that
rule, like Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, David, You notice how all the important
ones weren't the first ones born? Our Lord wasn't the first human
born. I'll tell you this though. He is the first born from among
the dead. He's the first one that was raised
from the dead never to die again. Everybody else who was raised
from the dead died again. I don't know where Lazarus' tomb
is, but it's somewhere. And he's in it. Not our Lord. but he's the firstborn
over all creation. And that's how the church is
defined. Those who have come to the church
of the firstborn. You know, Joseph's brethren were
jealous because it was obvious to them When it came time for
Jacob to dole out the blessings, they knew who was gonna get the
double portion. And it wasn't gonna be Reuben or Judah. It was gonna be Joseph, the guy
running around in the fancy coat, bragging about his dreams. And
they thought they'd get rid of him. Didn't work. And he got
the double portion in the land of promise, didn't he? You'll
notice there's no tribe of Joseph. There's a tribe of Ephraim and
Manasseh, his sons. He gets two tribes. Our Lord
Jesus Christ, he is God's firstborn. And we are members of his church.
And then look at this, which are written, or the word really
would be a better translation, enrolled, enrolled. The names are enrolled. There
is that song, is my name written there in the page, white and
fair, and I can't remember all the rest of it. It may be a no
good song, but that's a pretty good question. Is my name written
there? It doesn't matter if I'm written on the church roll of
any group down here. But boy, it means a lot if my
name has been written in heaven's book. in the Lamb's Book of Life. Come to God, the judge of all.
You say, well, that part doesn't sound so good. Wait a minute,
you notice what happened to Mount Sinai? They wouldn't come to
Him. They dare not come to Him. We have come to Him. And we came
to Him, and He was not a danger to us. You know, the judge, in
a perfectly just system, the judge is no danger to the guiltless,
is he? And if you are in Christ, you
are guiltless. We've come to the judge, and
I like the way Peter, he says, I think King James says, you
call on a father who's the judge of all the earth. The word means
to address. We address as father the one
that the rest of the world has to call judge. Now, if my dad
had been a judge, I would not have called him your honor. He
wouldn't have asked me to. What would I have called him?
Dad. Now, you think about that for a minute. You've come to
judge with all the earth, but you don't call him that. That's
not how you address him. He has given us a spirit of adoption
whereby we cry, Abba, Father. And we say that to the judge
of all the earth. He says, you've come to the spirits
of just, justified men, made perfect. Many brethren have gone before
us and have been made perfect. Now,
we're justified, aren't we? We're righteous in the sight
of God, and I'm sure glad. I'm also glad this isn't the
end of it. This isn't the final part of our salvation. There's
perfecting yet to be done, but God's gonna do it. And yet, so
certain is it that we are considered one with them. When Paul says
there is one body, he never said that body was growing. There are not people being joined
to that body. That body has been around since
before there was any such thing as before. That body is made up, we can go back at
least as far as Abel. The Bible never definitively
says whether or not Adam and Eve were believers. But we know
Abel was. So he's a part of that body. He is one of those righteous
ones, justified ones. He's been made perfect. And we
are with him. Have you ever noticed when you
read about John's visions of heaven, that his descriptions
of heaven essentially sound like a really good church service.
They are doing and saying the same things in heaven that we
do and say here. They just do it and say it better. We save the best for last. And
you've come to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant. Have you come to Him? In your heart, come to Him? I like coming to this meeting.
I like meeting with you all. When I get back in Iowa, I'm
going to enjoy being with them, brothers and sisters in Christ.
On this earth, there's nothing better. But it would mean nothing were
it not that we had come to this one member of God's church, the
firstborn, the head of the church, to Jesus, our mediator. When we come to God, we come
to him through a mediator, and a good one, mediator of a new
covenant, And there's lots of ways, I mean, you know, there's
characteristics of this new covenant that are completely different
from that old one, but the one that just, it sticks in my mind,
and it was put right at the very end, and again, maybe that's
saving the best for last, I don't know. And it says, in this new
covenant, for I will forgive their sins
and their iniquities, I will remember no more. God doesn't forget anything.
He's not getting old. The word means, or can mean,
many more things other than to no longer be cognizant of. It
can mean, and this is what I believe it means, they'll never be brought
up again. I was told in the church of my
youth, you're saved by grace without any of your works. But
then we're all going to have to appear before the judgment
seat to give us an account. I remember one evangelist said,
they're going to play a movie of your life. Everybody's going
to see it. All the stuff you thought was hidden is going to
be right there on a movie. I was talking to my sister. She said, well, it's going to
be X-rated. The very things we were told.
I thought it was funny. I wasn't allowed to go to movies.
Our church wouldn't allow it. But evidently they're going to
show a lot of them in heaven. And there are going to be some
pretty nasty ones. Our Lord said I'll never bring
them up again. I remember one time I was broken
hearted over sin. If you're like me, it's the same
old sin all the time. I was just broken hearted. And I said, Lord, I've done it
again. And I didn't hear an audible
voice, but the thoughts went through my mind. You did what
again? Now, I know our Lord would have known exactly what I meant,
but He wasn't going to bring it up. And into the blood of sprinkling,
that speaketh better things than that of Abel. Now, Abel's blood,
its cry, it was good. It was a cry for justice, and
justice is good. And God said to Cain, the blood
of your brother cries to me from the earth, cries for justice,
cries for vengeance. Why is the blood of Christ better?
Because the blood of Christ is the answer to the blood of Abel's
cry for justice. Abel's blood cried out for justice.
Christ's blood supplied the justice. And as that hymn, Arise My Soul,
Arise, says five bleeding wounds he bears. And I quoted this to
you the other day, but I'm going to do it again because it's good.
by bleeding wounds he bears, received on Calvary. They pour
effectual prayers. They strongly plead for me. Forgive, forgive, they cry. Nor let that ransomed sinner
die. The Father hears him pray. His
dear anointed son, or dear anointed one, he cannot turn away. the
pleadings of his son. The spirit answers to the blood
and tells me, I am born of God. Don't ever go back, because all
you can go back to is things that can be touched and things
that'll kill you. We have come to something much
better. Well, may God bless His word.