God’s invitation in the gospel, is to forgive all your sins and to give you
eternal life, and if you will respond, it is the by far, the greatest invitation in the
world! And, because the gospel is the greatest privilege imaginable, to refuse it is the greatest sin imaginable!
In
Matthew chapter 24, verses 7 through 14, "
And Jesus answered and said to them, “See to it that no one misleads you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will mislead many. y
ou will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs. "Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name. At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come."
Today, God is shaking the earth, however, God’s eternal kingdom cannot be shaken, and we are heirs of it through faith in Jesus Christ.
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father,
Father, we again thank You for Your Word, so rich and full of truth. Lord, we pray that You would open the ears and eyes of those with us today, those whom You have chosen to gather together, we ask that no one would fail to hear You, that no one would refuse Him that speaks. We thank You for the Holy Spirit calls to us to be faithful, to be obedient. Thank You for the sacrifice of Your Son, Jesus Christ, in Whom, we find full forgiveness. We are so grateful and so undeserving of such a precious gift. May we demonstrate our gratitude by committing our lives to Him and by our obedience to His commands.
Father, we pray for those who are on the edge, those who have not yet come to Christ, that You would in Your mercy touch their hearts, that today might be that glorious day of salvation.
We pray this in Christ's name
Amen
Today's Message: A Kingdom That Cannot Be Shaken
What more can God do than to send His only Son and shed His innocent
blood as the penalty for every sinner who will believe in Him? What must be in heart and mind of the one who knows the Gospel, who attaches himself superficially to it, but then who never really makes a full hearted
commitment to Jesus Christ?
If you have with us in this wonderful study of the great book of Hebrews, then you are aware of the things, which are important, the things which I only just remind you, the things that are written in God's Word. The things that Peter reminds us of in II Peter chapter 1, when he says "Therefore, I will always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them, and have been established in the truth which is present with you. I consider it right, as long as I am in this
earthly dwelling, to stir you up by way of reminder, knowing that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent, as also our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me."
Throughout the magnificent epistle, which was written to Jewish Christians, there are periodic warnings to those who have identified superficially with Christianity but never really received Christ. There are five such warnings, and this is the last of those five.
Open your Bibles with me to the book of Hebrews. In our ongoing study of this portion of God's Word, we come to a most important, most informative, strategic portion of Scripture. You will remember that the writer stops in His conversation with the Christians to whom He is
presenting the superiorities of the new covenant and merely encourages
them to stay with it. Then, He stops and warns those who are
intellectually convinced, those who are hanging in the balance, who are not
saved, and who are threatening to go back to Judaism. Even though they saw the beauties of Christianity, they also had some pressure pulling them back into Judaism, because they saw some things that were difficult to understand.
I invite you to follow along with me as I read, to set the text in our minds, as we prepare our hearts for the Spirit has to say to all of us today. Hebrews 12:25-29.
"See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven. And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven.” This expression,
“Yet once more,” denotes the removing of those things which can be
shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be
shaken may remain.Therefore,
since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show
gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with
reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire."
As I mentioned earlier, there are five warnings, four of which we have already seen. The first one you will remember, was in chapter 2, is neglect. He says, "How shall we escape if
we neglect so great salvation?" One of the things that was pulling them
away from Christianity, was a failure to do anything. And, the longer they neglected,
the easier it became. The longer they said no to Jesus
Christ, and the longer they said, "Well, I’m still thinking about it; I’m still considering it," the easier it became to reject. And the more they got into the habit, the more they adopted this kind of
attitude, the more pressure there was exerted on them to just do nothing.
And so, they were under the pressure of neglect.
The second was unbelief, which we saw in chapter 3, when the Holy Spirit says "Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." He later says in verse 19, "So we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief."
Third, we see in chapter 5 through the first part of chapter 6, they were being pressured by tradition. They were essentially hanging onto the forms of Judaism. Because they could not seem to break away from Judaism, they were preoccupied with old priesthood, the old sacrifices, and the temple. They were
being pressured by neglect, by unbelief, and by tradition not to come to Christ.
Forth, they were pressured by impatience. They apparently expected some kind of miracles to happen, perhaps within the church, and when they didn't, they began to falter in their trust and their confidence in Christianity.They had heard about the kingdom, about the glory about the joy and the reward that was coming and they became impatient, asking "When are all the good things coming?"
And so, here in 11th chapter, He says, "Come take it by faith. The promises are real; they’re just in the future. Look at all these people who never saw the promises, only by faith, and yet they trusted God. So, don’t be impatient."
And so in chapter 12, He says "Look, what they are suffering is not something to be afraid of; it is the loving discipline of God. So et in the race and run with endurance" In verse 6 He says, "Whom the Lord loves He chastens, and every son he scourges." In verse 8, He says "Hey look, if you don’t have it, you ought to be afraid." Even back in
chapter 10, verse 32, He says, "But call to remembrance the
former days, in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great
fight of afflictions."
It was very evident that this group had been under the gun because of their association, their identification with Christ. Then, in verses 18-24, He says "To come to Christianity is not to come to judgment; it’s not to come to wrath. Come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,
to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church
of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God, the Judge of
all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the
mediator of the new covenant and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel."
God’s going to judge every man on the basis of only two things: On the Gospel of grace and forgiveness, or the Law of judgement and justice. Where He will examine the books of your life, to see whether you kept the law perfectly. And, if you did not, you are damned! No man was ever saved by the law.
Now, in verse 25, He says "See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven."
Let’s begin by looking at Mount Sinai. Verse 18. The Holy Spirit has spoken against apostasy. Esau was a classic illustration of an apostate who turned his back on spiritual blessing when he knew full well what it was. The Mosaic covenant, was associated with Mount Sinai because that’s where
God spoke to Moses. And the mount itself represents the old covenant, it was a covenant of fear. He described what took place on in the mount when God gave Moses the law. When God dispensed the law in
Exodus chapter 19 and
20, He displayed His holiness. Man could not even think of approaching God on his own merit, it was unthinkable.
"And the Lord said unto Moses, ‘Go unto the people, and sanctify them today and tomorrow, and let the wash their clothes" —to purify them. They couldn’t even have relations in marriage because they were to
be pure, and there was a certain defilement that was contacted there,
and there had to be certain purification and cleansing in response to
that. So, there was nothing that could be done to defile them. They were
coming to the foot of a mount that was holy. And in verse 12, God said "You shall set bounds for the people all around, saying, ‘Beware that you do not go up on the mountain or touch the border of it; whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death."
Then, in
Exodus 20, verse 18, "And all the people saw the thunderings and
lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking. And
when the people saw it, they moved and stood afar off.” Instead of
coming near, they went backwards."
In verse 22, He says Come to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it does not bring us to a physical, material mountain; it brings us to a celestial city of glory. It brings us to the spiritual place where God dwells. Mount Sinai symbolized God’s dealing with men under the old covenant of
law, so Mount Zion symbolizes God’s dealing with men under the new
covenant of grace. What a glorious, glorious comparison it is. Mount
Zion represents grace, atonement, forgiveness. So, He says the day that you came to Jesus Christ, you came into the presence of God. A spiritual heavenly Zion.
There are several things which are note worthy about this kingdom. The first is, we have
already received it, and yet it is still to come in its fullness. "Receive" is a present participle, implying that we are in the process
of receiving this kingdom. We have already come to Mount Zion, the city
of the living God, and the heavenly Jerusalem, and yet in another sense,
we have not come to this city in its final form. That awaits the Second Coming of Christ. The word "receive" also means that we do not work to
merit this kingdom. We cannot earn it. It is a precious gift that God freely bestows on all that
believe.
In verses 26-27, He says "And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven.” This expression, “Yet once more,” denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain."
The words, "Once more," signify the removal of what can be shaken, that is things created, so that only the unshakable may remain. Verse 28, "Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe;"
God is shaking the earth right now. God is shaking the world’s great
security and power systems and God is shaking His church as well. God says that He will cause a great shake-up in the world, so that the shakable things, things which are man-made, will be shaken down so
that His unshakable Kingdom that has been given to us by Messiah may
be preeminent and Messiah prominent.
God is going to bring to down that which man has created so that we
have remaining what God has created for us. When we realize what the
real purpose behind God's great shaking, the saints will "be
filled with gratitude, and to return to worshiping God in acceptable
ways and with reverence and awe!" God is looking for true worshipers.
I believe that God is shaking the earth in a mighty way today. God is using an plague of pestilence to shake-up governments,
financial systems, globalism, education, medicine,
world order, and yes, he is shaking up the church, what there is left of it! We have become use to the POWER and SECURITY that our prosperity, our
science and technology and our advanced way of life has given us. We
have given greater value to the world systems of power and security and we have devalued the Word, the God-given power and security in the kingdom of God. In other words, we have exchanged the truth for a lie!
God is shaking to the core every worldly thing that man values and that man depends upon. The kingdoms that men have built have been built on foundations made of sand. The Kingdoms of this World, and all of the institutions and plans of the
world that we choose to rule over us in finances, health, safety,
government, education, religion and so on will fall, they will be shaken
and will prove to be weak when God moves His mighty hand and speaks
His mighty voice. This is merely a foretasting of the Great Shaking soon coming
to the earth.
When the things upon which man depends for our power and security are mightily shaken, and
when we are shaken to our knees, realizing just how powerless and helpless we are, and
that leads to fear, desperation and pandemic! That is where, I believe we are today
and I do not believe it is not going to get better anytime soon. Many will repent and others
will curse God and rebel.
The hand of God moving in judgment and warning, in effort to cause us to return to Him,
and to that which is unshakable: the Gospel of the Kingdom of YHWH as
revealed in Messiah as Savior and Lord of all. God is saying, "If you
want to continue to do things the world’s way, you will get the world’s results."
Man has created a church in his own image, celebrity pastors, it's mega churches, its monuments to men,
its entertainment pastors, its paid professional "ministers." In looking at the time Jesus felt it necessary to clean-up His Father’s house, the Temple in Jerusalem, I'd say we have a real good idea of how He feels about the "Business as Usual" attitude of the church today.
Jesus knew full-well what “business as usual” looked like. Jesus
became indignantly angry for what had been done to His Father’s House!
He took a whip, upturned the money tables, scattered money and livestock
all over the place, and sent the crooks and imposters scurrying for
cover. It was a shaking that exposed the "business as usual" and revealed the Father’s heart for His dwelling place and for His people.
I believe that God is revealing His displeasure with business as usual in our in our
nation, in our communities, in our churches, in our families and in our
individual lives. God is cleansing His temple and He is cleaning His
house. Today’s modern church models have become man's business, his programs and projects and forgetting about the business of God.
Church has become massive business enterprises more concerned with branding,
marketing, expansion, market share, program management, financial
projections and shaking down the people with money for paid ministers
and sacrifices to God! The individual enterprise members serve gods of
money, convenience, self-pleasure and self-gratification. Money, rather than
service, has become the mercenary means of operating the church and
many anonymous "ministries."
Individuals treat Christ's church as a
spiritual convenience store where we get quick pleasantries and purchase
spiritual indulgences. Individual temples of God have outsourced their
own ministry and worship to paid ministry contractors and hirelings,
giving money rather than giving of themselves as living sacrifices which
are holy and acceptable to Almighty God. Local churches are franchises
of huge chain churches that carry a particular brand and various peculiarities.
Today's "church business," is a far cry from biblical patterns given us in the Gospel. The modern corporate church and its individual members find their power and security in the things that are of the Kingdoms of this World, rather
than from the Kingdom of God. The church often utilizes the shakable
things of this world rather than the unshakable things of the Kingdom.
In short, they're part of the wrong kingdom.
This includes almost everything that describes Mystery Babylon, that which is
held together by global financial systems. Eventually, that will come
down in one- hour the Bible says in Revelation 18:19, which says "And they threw dust on their heads and were crying out, weeping and mourning, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, in which all who had ships at sea became rich by her wealth, for in one hour she has been laid waste!"
In the meantime, this man made kingdom is
being shaken severely enough for us to realize that it is
only temporal and is the creation of man not God. Moreover, the people who had been misled by blind leaders and false prophets
are going to be shaken to the ground as their security and hopes are
dashed along with the worldly things they have embraced.
James tells us in chapter 1:2-3, "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."
So we praise God in this blessed pandemic, we praise God in the middle of the shake down. For we know His purposes will be revealed through it all. True discipleship is for each individual to take up their cross, deny themselves and
follow Him. Discipleship is obeying God in everything, not just the things that do not cramp our style.
True Kingdom Ministry is both collective and individual, with the most
unshakable being the latter. We must have leadership
and authority in order to equip the
saints for Christ's service and ministry.
We must allow God to drive out everything that indulges, deceives and entices us to that
which is shakable. We must die to self, surrender and submit to the
Lordship of Jesus Christ.
Revelation 2:5 tells us, "Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place—unless you repent."
God’s going to wipe out the entire universe, leaving only that which is eternal. God is going to come in terrifying judgment, and everything in this world is going to fall apart. In Revelation 21:1-4, John says "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away."
In verse 29, He says "for our God is a consuming fire." This the sternest warning in the book of Hebrews, maybe in the entire Bible. If you’re still stuck in indecision when He comes again, it’s damnation in a way
that the world has never dreamed feasible. In fact, it’s so horrible
that the Bible even says if the days were not shortened, all flesh would
be wiped out, even the godly. You just couldn’t stand in a situation
like that.
In Closing..
Today, you stand warned, you are either going to face God in judgement and justice, or you will face God in grace and forgiveness, pleading the blood of Jesus Christ. Mount Sinai or Mount Zion. Don’t let neglect, unbelief, tradition, impatience, or fear keep you from Jesus Christ.
May it be so..
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
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