“Do Not Refuse Him”
[Hebrews
12:25-29]
February
16, 2014 Second Reformed Church
The
author of Hebrews wrote to the first century Christians who were suffering
intense persecution and considering returning to Judaism to persuade them not
to turn away from the Gospel. To those
living today as Christians under persecution, he says the same: endure for the
sake of Christ and do not turn your back on the Gospel. And to those Christians who live in places
like the United States where we live in relative ease – to the extent that we
don’t believe that we need to be saved from anything – he tells us the same:
recognize your need and the only way to be right with God through the Gospel.
Last
week, we looked at how he made a distinction between Mount Sinai, where the Law
of God was received, and Mount Zion, where the benefits of the Gospel are
received. He argued that if we try to
make ourselves right through keeping the Law – Mount Sinai – we will die,
because we are all sinners. But, if we
receive the Gospel, we will be received into the Kingdom of Mount Zion, through
Jesus’ life of perfectly keeping God’s Law, death in which He paid the debt for
our sin, and resurrection.
The
author of Hebrews continues to draw parallels in this morning’s text. He ends this chapter by drawing some
conclusions in the context of a final warning.
He argues:
First,
it is fatal to refuse God.
Second,
those who refuse to obey God’s Law will be consumed.
Third,
those who refuse to receive the Gospel will be consumed.
Fourth,
God shook the earth when He delivered the Law.
Fifth,
God shakes the earth and heavens as the Gospel Kingdom comes.
Sixth,
we ought to respond to God with gratefulness.
Seventh,
we ought to offer God acceptable worship.
And
eighth, our God is a consuming fire.
“See
that you do not refuse him who is speaking.
For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on
earth, much less will they escape him who warns from heaven.”
First,
it is fatal to refuse God.
The
author of Hebrews is referring back to the distinction he has just drawn: God
spoke the Law from Mount Sinai – which is on earth, and when the people
disobeyed and made the golden calf to worship, they did not escape the Wrath of
God. We read:
“And
when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break
loose, to the derision of their enemies), then Moses stood in the gate of the
camp and said, ‘Who is on the Lord’s side?
Come to me.’ And all the sons of
Levi gathered around him. And he said to
them, ‘Thus says the LORD God of Israel, “Put your sword on your side each of
you, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you
kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.”’ And the sons of Levi did
according to the word of Moses. And that
day about three thousand men of the people fell. And Moses said, ‘Today you have been ordained
for the service of the LORD, each one at the cost of his son and of his
brother, so that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day’” (Exodus
32:25-29, ESV).
God
spoke the Gospel from heaven – from Mount Zion – the Gospel Kingdom which is
here and is coming – through Jesus. As the author of Hebrews stated in the
opening of his letter: “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to
our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoke to us by his
Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the
world” (Hebrews 1:1-2, ESV).
Those
who do receive the Gospel, we are told, will not be received by God in the
Kingdom: “But nothing unclean will ever enter in, nor anyone who does what is
detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life”
(Revelation 21:26-27, ESV).
So,
it is a fatal error to try to live by God’s Law for the end of salvation, which
is not possible, and it is a fatal error to think we can be received into the
Kingdom in any other way except through the Gospel. For:
Second,
those who refuse to obey God’s Law will be consumed.
Now,
we must understand that the author of Hebrews is not saying that those who do
not keep the Law will suffer eternal Hell.
No mere human being since Adam and Eve can keep the Law perfectly since
we are born with Original Sin – a sin nature – an inclination to sin – our
birth-response is to reject God and all that He has said and commanded. No, what we need to understand here is that
anyone who believes he can earn salvation through keeping the Law, who does not
keep the Law, will suffer eternal Hell, because the Law cannot be and was never
intended to be a way of salvation.
As
Paul wrote, “For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without
the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. ...
For the law brings wrath, ...” (Romans 1:12; 4:15a, ESV).
Similarly,
third, those who refuse to receive the Gospel will be consumed.
In
a land where most people say they are “better than average” and “good enough”
to be received by God into His Kingdom, it is a horrifying thought that God is
Holy, and He has made only One Way to be right with Him – through the Gospel of
Jesus Christ.
Paul
explains the outcome for those who refuse to receive the Gospel: “This is the
evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of
the Kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering – since indeed God
considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant
relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is
revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting
vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel
of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the
punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from
the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his
saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our
testimony to you was believed” (II Thessalonians 1:5-10, ESV).
And
so, the author of Hebrews draws a distinction between the Law and the Gospel,
arguing that if we try to earn salvation by keeping the Law, the fatal end to
that is God’s judging us by the Law for our sin, which only ends in our being
consumed by the Wrath of God for our sin.
And if we reject the Gospel as being unnecessary, we will be judged by
the Law for our sin, which only ends in our being consumed by the Wrath of
God. Either way is eternally fatal; the
only hope is not to refuse the Gospel of God, but to receive it.
It
is a fatal decision to try to earn salvation by the Law which God gave on
earth, but it is a much more fatal decision to reject the Gospel, which God
gave through His Son, from heaven. The
Law is flawed in the sense that it was never intended to be a way to salvation
– believing it is is a fatal mistake – to do so leaves no room for escape from
the Wrath of God. But it is a much
greater mistake to refuse to believe the Gospel, since it comes from heaven,
and proclaims the One Way to salvation – to reject the Gospel is to give less
room for escape from the Wrath of God.
The
author of Hebrews continues to parallel by showing that God shook the earth in
giving the Law and now shakes the earth and heavens in giving the Gospel:
“At
that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, ‘Yet once more I
will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.’ The phrase, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the
removal of things that are shaken – that is, things that have been made – in
order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.”
Fourth,
God shook the earth when He delivered the Law.
We
remember how God shook the earth in giving the Law:
“On
the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick
cloud on the mountain and a very long trumpet blast, so that all the people in
the camp trembled. Then Moses brought
the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot
of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was
wrapped in smoke because the LORD had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a
kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly.
And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and
God answered him in the thunder. The LORD
came down on Mount Sinai to the top of the mountain. And the LORD called Moses to the top of the
mountain, and Moses went up” (Exodus 19:16-20, ESV).
And
we remember the response of the people:
“Now
when the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of
the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and
they stood far off and said to Moses, ‘You speak to us, and we will listen; but
do not let God speak to us, lest we die.’
Moses said to the people, ‘Do not fear, for God has come to test you,
that the fear of him might be before you, that you may not sin.’ The people stood far off, while Moses drew
near to the thick darkness where God was” (Exodus 20:18-21, ESV).
God
showed something of His Holy Power by shaking Mount Sinai, sending thunder and
lightning, and the blast of a trumpet, continually increasing, to shake the
people and let them know that God, the Holy God, was speaking to them,
commanding them and instructing them on how to live a holy life – how to live
as the people of God. (The Moral Law
remains for us – that Law that God has called us to keep as His people.)
As
disturbing and impressive as it was for God to shake the earth to show His Holy
Power to the people, it is much greater – more impressive – that God is now
shaking the earth and the heavens. In
this we see:
Fifth,
God shakes the earth and heavens as the Gospel Kingdom comes.
The
promise that the author of Hebrews quotes is from Haggai, chapter 2:
“Yet
now be strong, Zerubbabel, declares the LORD.
Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong all you people of the land,
declares the LORD. Work, for I am with
you, declares the LORD of hosts, according to the covenant that I made with you
when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit
remains in your midst. Fear not, for
thus says the LORD of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the
heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, so that the
treasure of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory,
says the LORD of hosts. The silver is
mine, the gold is mine, declares the LORD of hosts. The latter glory of this house shall be
greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares
the LORD of hosts” (Haggai 2:4-9, ESV).
Haggai
was preaching shortly after 835 B.C. to the people who came back to Judah after
the Babylonian captivity. They had come
back to Jerusalem and had begun to rebuild the Temple, but it was much smaller
and less ornate than Solomon’s Temple, and the people were mourning the
comparatively pitiful Temple they were building.
Though
Haggai, God told Governor Zerubbabel and High Priest Joshua to not despair “the
day of small things” – that they should not despair that the Temple they were
building was so much less in every way than Solomon’s Temple – because God was
going to shake the heavens and the earth – and when God did, God would fill the
Temple with greater glory than was found in Solomon’s Temple.
The
author of Hebrews adds to this that when God shakes the heavens and the earth,
God will remove the shakeable and leave the unshakeable.
We
need to ask ourselves when did – or will – the glory of the Temple be greater
than Solomon’s Temple? And, when did –
or will – God shake the heavens and the earth, removing the shakeable things
and leaving the unshakeable?
We
need to understand that the prophecy is not about a building, per se. Haggai’s Temple and Herod’s Temple were
certainly not more glorious than Solomon’s.
And there has been no Temple in Jerusalem since 70 A. D. when the Romans
destroyed it. And since Jesus fulfilled
the Old Testament Sacrificial Law, we should not expect a physical temple to
rebuilt – and if it ever is, it will be a pagan temple, not the Temple of the
biblical God.
In
one sense, we can say that the glory of the Temple was greater than Solomon’s
when Jesus preached and taught in it, because, at that time, God Himself was in
the Temple. From the earliest days of
Jesus’ life, He was in the Temple. We
read when Jesus was twelve years old, He went to the Temple and spoke with the
priests, “After three days [Mary and Joseph] found [Jesus] in the temple,
sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his
understanding and his answers” (Luke 2:46-47, ESV).
And
early in Jesus’ public ministry, we read:
“And
[Jesus] came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the
synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was
given to him. He unrolled the scroll and
found the place where it was written, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the
captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are
oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’ And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back
to the attendant and sat down. And the
eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.
And he began to say to them, ‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in
your hearing’” (Luke 4:16-21, ESV).
In
these incidents, and others, we see greater glory revealed than ever had been
in the Temple – God Himself was revealing Himself and His Gospel of salvation
to all those who will believe.
Ultimately, this greater glory will be fulfilled in the Kingdom, as we
read: “And I saw no temple in the city [New Jerusalem] for its temple is the
Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb” (Revelation 21:22, ESV). The greater glory is Jesus in the Temple, in
His people, and most fully in the New Jerusalem where He is the Temple Himself.
The
shaking of the heavens and the earth also began in the ministry of Jesus: as
Jesus hung on the cross, we read: “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness
over all the land until the ninth hour. ... And behold, the curtain of the
temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.
And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs were also opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen
asleep were raised, and coming out of their tombs after his resurrection they
went into the holy city and appeared to many.
When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over
Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and
said, ‘Truly this was the Son of God!’” (Matthew 27:45, 51-54, ESV).
God
told Haggai that nations would be shaken – and we see in history that no one
has caused so much upheaval and change in all the world than Jesus has through
His life, death, and resurrection – the Gospel.
David
prophesied about this upheaval and the falling away of the shakeable and the
sustaining of the unshakable: “Of old [God] laid the foundation of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a
garment. You will change them like a
robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same, and your years have no
end. The children of your servants shall
dwell secure; their offspring shall be established before you” (Psalm
102:25-28, ESV).
And
Isaiah recorded God saying, “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth,
and the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind” (Isaiah 65:17,
ESV).
Peter
described the coming of the fulness of the Gospel Kingdom through this shaking
in this way: “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the
heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up
and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed”
(II Peter 3:10, ESV).
Jesus
said, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be
darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from
the heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the
Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see
the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud
trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end
of heaven to the other” Matthew 24:29-31, ESV).
The
greater glory of God began to be seen in the Incarnation and ministry of Jesus
and continues to be revealed through the faithful, and will be seen in all its
fulness when Jesus returns. And the
shaking of the heavens and the earth also began with the ministry of Jesus –
both as the Gospel has rocked all the nations of the world and changed history
forever, as well as the physical manifestations of the Creation reacting to
Jesus’ crucifixion and death, to the ultimate restoration of the Creation and
us with our bodies – when all that is able to fail and sin and fall apart is
removed from all of Creation, and the Creation and we who believe are restored
and brought into the fulness of the Kingdom forever with Jesus.
As
Paul writes, “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but
because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set
free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the
children of God. For we know that the
whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until
now. And not only the creation, but we
ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait
eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:20-23,
ESV).
For
we who believe, the coming of the fulness of the Glory of God in Jesus the
Temple of the New Jerusalem, the removal of all that can decay and mar and sin,
and the restoration of the Creation and us with our bodies, is not something we
should fear, but something we ought to look forward to with great expectation
and hope. Jesus’ Second Coming is not
escape from the world, but the making of everything right and good and holy, by
removing all that can be shaken and all those who never believe.
The
hope that we have in Jesus and His Gospel, the Kingdom promises and the
Restoration, is why we can endure all we must suffer for Christ in this world,
yet hold fast to the Gospel. If we do
not hold fast to the Gospel – if we refuse God and His salvation – all is lost,
and we will suffer the Wrath of God, but if we hold fast and receive Him and
His Gospel, we have every sure hope in the world that God will sustain us by
the Holy Spirit and bring us to Jesus in the Kingdom.
With
that sort of hope before us – if we have been convinced through the indwelling
work of God, the Holy Spirit – the author of Hebrews draws some conclusions,
with a final warning:
“Therefore
let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let
us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a
consuming fire.”
Sixth,
we ought to respond to God with gratefulness.
One
of the basic results of our sin nature is that humans are not thankful to God
for the blessings we have received. Paul
writes, “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give
thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish
hearts were darkened” (Romans 1:21, ESV).
That
is not – and ought not be – the case among Christians – especially since we
have received the greatest blessing in salvation through Jesus Christ. Paul writes, “Let the word of Christ dwell in
you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms
and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do
everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father
through him” (Colossians 3:16-17, ESV).
If
we have been saved through the work of our God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ,
we ought to do all things in thanksgiving and to the honor of the Name of
Jesus. We ought to be a people who
always give thanks to the Father for saving us through the Son and the Holy
Spirit. How can we be anything less than
thankful – we who have been taken out of the mass of humanity headed only to
receive the Wrath of God, and made right with God, but not only that – being made
brothers and sisters with Jesus, co-heirs of the Kingdom that is coming where
we will be with Him forever in joy?
Seventh,
we ought to offer God acceptable worship.
We
are – first and foremost – to worship God in reverence and awe – recognizing Him
for Who He is and what He has done.
Understanding who we were and who we are now, by His Will and for His
joy and sovereign pleasure. Our
thanksgiving for Who God is and what He has done should lead to worship – the
declaration to God, ourselves, and others, of the worthiness of God. And we ought to humbly come before Him, for
though He is our Father, He is still the Holy God before Whom the earth and
heavens shake.
Eight,
our God is a consuming fire.
To
understand the greatness of God and the heinousness of our sin, we keep before
us the fact that our God is a consuming fire – all those who refuse Him will be
brought under His fiery Wrath to suffer the full measure of their sin.
When
Moses reviewed the laws against idolatry, he said, “Take care, lest you forget
the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make a carved
image, the form of anything that the LORD your God has forbidden you. For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a
jealous God” (Deuteronomy 4:23-24, ESV).
God
is holy and He will not allow an idol to take His place or be put along side of
Him. We cannot worship God and anything
else – yet, whenever we sin, we commit idolatry, putting something else above
the Word of God – telling God that He doesn’t know what‘s best for us – telling
Him that our sin is worth more to us that rightly worshiping Him.
God
is jealous for His Name – for His correct worship – for His being seen as the
Holy God He is, and when sin is committed, He rages against it, because all sin
is against Him. Let us not refuse Him, but receive the Gospel in thanksgiving and
worship, as the earth and heavens continue to shake, and we wait in the sure
hope of the New Jerusalem.
Let
us pray:
Almighty
God, help us to worship You with reverence and in awe. Help us to see You for Who You are and to
give thanks. Be pleased to change the
heart of anyone here who has not received the Gospel, that they would not need
to fear the consuming fire of Your Holiness against sin, but rejoice in Your
coming. For it is in Jesus’ Name we
pray, Amen.
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