HEAVEN RULES BY REVELATION (Part 2) | Elder Ang Peng Hoe

You're listening to a message to go from acts Church. We hope this message

will light up your day. I shed at the combined not combined. It

wasn't combined. It was so ipen claim didn't have a venue. And then

you all join subunk tentity and I shard from Hebrews chapter twelve that morning,

the first portion verses one to seventeen. A little bit of teaching on that.

So if you want to hear the first part of the message, I

will ask you to go ahead and log onto Spotify and you can look for

the subunk Tentity message for I think the last Sunday of the year last year,

thirty first of January December. Sorry, I'm going to be sharing the

second part more teaching, the second part of the portion of scripture from Hebrews

chapter twelve. And if you first read it, it'd probably be like goes

past you a little bit, but bury me? Can I ask you all

to just bury me. I'll take you through a bit of Bible exposition for

the next one hour, and I hope that you don't lose me. Don't

lose me? Yeah, okay, So I'm going to be reading the whole

verse verse eighteen to twenty nine, and I've simply entitled the message Heaven Rules

by Revelation, and I'll explain why what I mean through the title and how

I want to draw it back to this portion of scripture. Okay, so

verses eighteen, I'm going to be reading from the NLT and it's going to

be flash out. So thank you so much, Joseph, all the best

with the slides. Okay. It says this, a you have not come

to a physical mountain, to a place of flaming fire, darkness, gloom,

and whirlwind, as the Israelites did at Mount Sinai. For they heard

an awesome trumpet blast and a voice so terrible that they beg God to stop

speaking. They staggered back. Under God's command, if even an any touches

the mountain, it must be stoned to death. Moses himself was so frightened

at the sight that he said, I'm terrified and trembling. Verse twenty two

goes on to say this, No, you have come to Mount Zion,

to the city of the Living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless

thousands of angels in a joyful gathering. You have come to the assembly of

God's first born children, whose names are written in heaven. You have come

to God himself, who is the judge over all things. You have come

to the spirits of the righteous ones in heaven, who have now been made

perfect. You have come to Jesus, the one who mediates the new covenant

between God and people, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks of forgiveness

instead of crying out for vengeance like the blood of Able, be careful.

Verse twenty five says that you do not refuse to listen to the one who

is speaking. For if the people of Israel did not escape when they refuse

to listen to Moses, the earthly messenger, we will certainly not escape if

we reject the one who speaks to us from heaven. When God spoke from

Mount Sinai, his voice shook the earth. But now he makes another promise

once again, I will shake not only the earth, but the heavens also.

This means that all of creation will be shaken and removed, so that

only unshakable things will remain. Verse twenty eight. Since we are receiving a

kingdom that is unshakable, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping him

with holy fear and awe, for our God is a devouring fire. Okay.

I mean if you all have read through this portion of scripture before and

wondered, what in the world is it talking about? Right, So firstly,

let me paint the overall picture to help us contextualize this portion of scripture,

because just reading it like that may not make a whole lot of sensa.

So let's start with this, Okay. One of the greatest dangers in

Christian life is actually going back to one's own life. Okay, always are

born again? Right, born again? Okay, those who are not,

we will explain more as we go along. Please continue to come to church.

Amen. And so if you go back to one's old life's basically basically

called backsliding. Okay. Backsliding is done unintentionally, not deliberately, but many

of us can actually drive back into our old ways of thinking and our own

life. It's a normal thing. And this is quite dangerous. And that's

why the plea in the earlier part of Hebrews chapter twelve, from where I

was pitching from towards the end of last year, it says this, no

fix your eyes on Jesus, get rid of everything and anything that causes or

handicaps you. That means anything that impedes you from moving forward. Run the

race and be determined to get there. And he says keep your eyes fixed

on the goal. That means keep running forward inexorably. That's what is essentially

saying, don't look back, look forward. That's the starting part, that's

the context. And so this letter is really saying this. It is not

just important to have begun your Christian work. That means you begin, you

begin believing, and now you're a believer. It's actually so important for you

to continue and complete. And that is the urgency in the Letter of Hebrews.

If you read Hebrews, the entire thing is talking about this. There

is an urgency for you to continue and to complete. And so when you

come back to this problem of backsliding, this is a problem with the converted

Jews. Again, there's a reason why it's called Hebrews, because it was

written to the Jews. The Jews of where we are not entirely sure.

We presume it's the Roman Church because of the last part of the scripture that

actually says all of us here from Italy says High to you which we assume

that they are actually writing the church and addressing it back to the church in

Rome, but not just any church, the mainly addressing the Hebrew converts in

the Roman Church makes sense so far. Okay, so they are Christians,

but they are also Jews, so they the writer's fear is this not that

they will actually go back to Judaism. That is the fear of the writer

here, and then they will revert back to their own religion. And so

you notice this, you can backslide into things that are good. Think about

it, because they weren't in the in danger of backsliding into a ereligion or

non religion environment. They're actually backsliding into a religious environment. They're not backsliding

into immorality, because really Judaism is you can't you can't say that it's an

immoral religion. But they beckslanting into a morality of a wrong kind, a

different kind. And that's the tragic part of it and underlines this whole letter.

This whole letter is trying to tell us that good is the enemy of

best, and Judaism was a good religion. It was a moral religion.

It's a godly religion, but it is constantly in conflict with Christianity, and

when Christianity came, we saw that, we saw those conflicts. In fact,

Paul addressed a lot of it, a lot of the Judaistic practices.

Paul had to address it. So basically, it was like new wine in

all wine skins, and God wants the best for us. He wants the

best for you and me. The best is Christ. And you can live

a religious and a moral life and still not know the best that God has

for you in Christ. That is the reality of it. And so the

author of Hebrews, which no one knows who is it, so let's not

speculate, but he wrote this to converted Jews, and he kept drawing a

contrast between Moses and Jesus. You realize that's where the portion of Scripture is

talking about Sinai and talking about Zion. I will explain as I go deeper

into it, but basically he's talking about the difference between all religion and new

one, the new one. And both of them were good, both of

them were from God. But when you have got the best one, the

good becomes not so good and not the one that you should be following.

And the key word again in the letter to the Hebrews is better. That's

what is essentially saying Christianity is better than all religions, including Judaism, because

Christ is better than all other religious leaders. That's what it is saying.

If you read from chapter one all the way to chapter thirteen, that's what

is actually saying. Let me just run through it. It draws a lot

of contrasts when you read the entire letter of Hebrews, is drawing a contrast

between Jesus and the prophets, and essentially he's saying that Jesus is better than

the prophets. Then he goes on to say Jesus is better than the angels,

because there were people who were worshiping angels. And then he goes on

to say that Jesus is better than the great pioneers and the great apostles of

the Old Testament, Moses and Joshua. And then he goes on to say

Jesus is better than the priests of the Old Testament, because all the priests

of Erin came and went and they failed to get people right with God.

But Jesus came and he got them right with God. And therefore he's better

then there was the next contrast, all the sacrifices of the blood of the

bulls and all the gods that were slain on the althar, Jesus is better

than that because they used to do that in the Old Testament year in year

out, year in year out, and they thought that it can cover their

sins. But he probably only covered their sins for one year because they doing

it year in years until Jesus came and he sacrificed once and for all.

Jesus is better than the old sacrificers. The next contrast is this between all

the believers of the Old Testament and the pioneer and the perfector of our faith,

Jesus, who do you think is better? And of course in Hebroes

it says that the believers of the past were great men of faith about they

were not pioneers of faith, and they were not perfectors of faith. They

were examples of faith. It's different, but Jesus is not just an example

of faith. He was the pioneer and the perfector of faith. Essentially,

they're saying that all the heroes of faith that you read in chapter eleven,

Jesus is better than them, and so for that reason, Jesus is better

than the prophets, better than angels, better than apostles, better than priests,

better than sacrificers, better than the believers. It is much better to

be a Christian than to be a Jew. That is the underlying context of

the letter to the Hebrews. So the question is why then do we go

back? Why then do we slide? Because it can happen, and I

can tell you some will speculate for the Hebrew Church because back then in Rome,

Judaism was a recognized religion, and so Christianity or followers of the Way,

technically you are considered ajarant society, and if you remain in Adjaran society,

probably get your butt one way or the other. And I think a

lot of them, out of fear, reverted back to what was official back

then. It could be one of the reasons. But again, why should

we slide back? Is the question that I want you all to have,

because Hebrews is a letter that tells us that new is better than the old.

And so having said that, one of the things that has been a

challenge in Christian teaching in churches today is this. It's trying to get the

right relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Okayeah, now now

we start thinking, let's think a little bit further, because if you get

that wrong, then the church life can go wrong. Have you ever met

people who like the Old Testament? I want to read the New Testimony,

and that's the nice part the Old Testament. You know, the question is

how do we relate to them? Because they are both truth, and there

is a tendency for us to look at the Old and New Testament too far

apart. Basically, you draw out such a contrast between the two, then

you set them against one another. Basically, some people will say, the

God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament do different gods?

Ever heard people say that before? It has been said. They draw

a comparison, and it's common in church life today. You know, people

will say, the God of the Old Testament quite cruel, and it's quite

a horrible go He orders the slaughter of innocent people. And that's not like

the God we meet in the New Testament. I meet a loving, kind

father in our Lord Jesus. He's so nice, he's so gentle, he's

like a shepherd, and he's high young us, and therefore the Old Testament

gives a false picture of God. It's a record of people's false understanding of

God, and that we need. What we need is the God of Jesus.

That's how some people actually portray and they say, let's just focus on

the New Testament. Have you heard that being asked, talked about, being

debated. I have. It's a very popular question actually in apologetics, people

ask all about it. People like that, and then of course they go

on to say, no, God will never send anybody to Hell, the

God of the Old Testament, but the God of the New Testament, he

is not so cruel. Actually, if you think about it, if you

study the teachings of about Hell, most of it came from the New Testament.

And I keep you know, most of it came from Jesus teachings about

Hell. Okay, but we are not going to go into that unless you're

one another whole two hours. But that is the kind of tension, and

that's the dichotomy that actually actually exists today in the Church. In fact,

sometimes people draw this false distinction and draw the contrast between the Old and New

too sharply they themselves cannot accept some parts of the New Testament. Some people

don't like the Book of Revelations. For a start, they read revelations like,

oh, man, this God in revelations look a little bit like the

God of the Old Testament. And then sometimes they look at Paul's teachings,

or Paul's teaching sometimes a bit old school, some parts I want to cut

out science. They look at some parts of the Gospel, or so they

can't even take it. Basically, they are trying to reduce God to some

kind of you know, the last time I preach, we have this mindset

that he's someone very sentimental, like a grandfather. He's not He's not God

the father who disciplines and chastises. He's God, the grandfather who's Siang,

Siang Siang. And then he gives back, and then he walks away.

And sometimes we have that we we we make God in our own image,

thinking that he is a grandfather more than he is a father who disciplines his

children. And so some people like this will never preach this second half of

Hebrews chapter twelve. Why do I say that, Well, because if you

read Hebrews chapter twelve, towards the enna, he says that our God is

a consuming fire man. This are like strong words, no consuming fire.

Where you get that from God? Our God is a consuming fire. Technically

you got it from the Old Testament. It's in Hebrews, but he's actually

also in Leveticus. It's also in Deuteronomy. It's also in Exodus. And

you might say that that's the new that's the Old Testament conception of God.

Were Christians. We don't think like that anymore. We are all new New

Age. But this is written to Christians. And this is New Testament,

not the old. And this is an Old Testament called in the New And

it's the same God, true and true from beginning to the end. We

have the same God through the whole Bible. Everything said about him in the

Old Testament is true, and you will always be true. And the this

saying, I don't know whether you have ever heard of it. It says

the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed, and the New Testament is the

Old Testament reveal. Makes sense, It makes sense. Okay, So is

there an all and a new dichotomy. That's a question that we have to

ask ourselves. Why then, do we get a different feel of God in

the New Testament that you do in the Old because you do. Let's be

honest. I'm not going to stand here and tell you that they're the same,

exactly the same. No dollars and science is no, there is that.

No. Why is it that when we read the Old Testament you get

an impression of a God that you want to run away from, and then

in the New Testament you get an impression of God that you want to run

towards. You have you had the impression I have? Why this difference?

Has God changed? Has God changed? Okay? No, And I'll tell

you why. Something, something quite profound, has changed. It is not

gone, but is our experience of God that has changed? Okay, God

has not changed. Our experience of God has changed. And this underlines a

very important truth. And I want us to let's take it a little bit

deeper, someon more. Remember this principle always, never judge God by your

experience of him, Judge Him by his revelation of himself. Does that make

sense? Never judge God by your experience of him, Judge God by his

own revelation of himself. That means go back to the world. What does

that mean now? I mean that your experience of a person can be misleading.

It can sometimes be limited. We experience one aspect of a person's life

when we are say officially in church, No, I see Jason, He's

the nicest person in the world. And then someone else, maybe living with

Jason, might have a different experience of him. Maybees has seen him get

angry, even though I none of us have seen Jason get angry. Maybe

just no, he's never got angry before. I don't know. I don't

know, but you know, Jess could say that, no, he's been

angry before, and then of course we will be like, no, no,

that's impossible. Not just never will never harm a fly. I've never

known him angry. But that does not prove a thing except that we have

never seen him getting angry. It doesn't prove that he can't get angry.

You see what I'm saying. So in the Old Testament experience a very great

deal of God's wrath. Read the Old Testament. That's why when we were

reading that two portions, the first part is all right, And that is

how we know that the wrath of God is real, because when we read

scriptures, we know God can get angry on and we see in the Old

Testament. If I've not experienced that, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

If I've never seen God as fired, that doesn't mean he isn't fire.

If I've never met God as judged, that does not mean that he isn't

judged. It simply means that I haven't had that experience of that side of

his character. Makes sense. So the fact is that Christians have not experienced

the side of God's character that the Jews did in the Old Testament. But

it is still there, and it is still real, and we could experience

it. I'm not saying we can't, but we should thank God that we

haven't. We should draw up a picture of God not from our own experience

of God, but from what he says he is and what he has done.

That's how we must establish our faith. Let me focus on this even

more. I have never experienced the total destruction of my society by flood.

Noah has now. Am I to say that God will never do that because

I have not experienced it? Am I to say that God will never destroy

an entire society with water is simply because I never saw it and I wasn't

there. But what did God say instead, he actually said, while the

earth remains, I will never do that again. While the earth remains doesn't

mean he isn't a sort of God who would do it. It just means

that nobody since Noah's day has ever seen it happen, that's all. While

the earth remains, that was God's promise, he says, I'm not going

to do it. Then the rainbow. So are we now ready to approach

this passage started? I even gone into the passage yet. And the whole

meaning of this passage is that the experience of the Jews is different from the

Christian's experience of God. But what they experience is still true because God has

not changed, and what we will experience is also true. And you must

put it all together to get the whole picture. That's so important. Otherwise,

the danger is that we do not have enough reverence and awe in our

worship. And that is the problem that's underlying the church today because we don't

experience what the Jews experience. We tend to be very chummy. We've got

like what we're puss some buddies. You know, everything is okay, you

know. We tend to come to church as if we are going to the

cinema. Sometimes again I'm not knocking anywhere. This this speaks to me equally.

You know, today we have a form of worship with order, with

dacrum, and sometimes people say, oh, that's very artificial. No,

there's always this desire. Let's be natural, let's be real, let's flow.

We need a new objective, we need freedom to worship. I'm not

against all those things, but really, sometimes the church today they look at

form as an enemy. Form or structure or order takes away people's liberty.

But how I look at it is we are actually cultivating our own informality in

church, and sometimes it can be illustrated. And again I'm not knocking anyone.

Don't don't take me wrongly. I just want us to think a little

bit further. You know, sometimes back in the past, it used to

be considered necessary for us to dress formally when we come to service to meet

God, because we are worshippers words shipping the King, and we will put

on our best. You know, we don't have that today in church as

much as we used to, but we will still do it when we go

for interviews. We'll do it. If we meet an earthly king. You

know that's the reality of it. Of course, the Bible, I know

it does say. It makes a point that man may look at our pearance,

the our pearance is not important, and God looks at the heart.

You know the quote Scriptures for Samuel sixteen verse seven. For Samuel sixteen,

verse seven is talking about the selection of a king. It's not talking about

worshippers. Can I just get us to if we want, if we really

want to go back to scripture, it's talking about the selection of a king.

And yes, when God is selecting a king, he's going to be

looking at the heart. But we're talking about worshippers coming to the king of

kings. Why do we reject some of the formal parts of it. I'm

not saying it's wrong. I'm not saying free worship is wrong, but sometimes

it leads. No, it starts off like we take our foot off the

gas, and then we slowly cruise, and then before you know it,

you start seeing from informality it declines into a punctuality thing. We come to

church s and when whatever time that we want. Again, I'm speaking from

experience, and even me I've done that before. There are some mornings you

wake up. You know, we are not in preparation of going to worship

the King of kings. We are almost like dragging our feet and like again

it's this informality, but you know, a serious aspect to this is really

we need to understand why do we approach worship in such a relaxed manner.

Some people say, oh, there's this suspicion that the Holy Spirit is no

longer inspiring us. And the Holy Spirit definitely warn't a proof of prepared worship.

He prefers us to be, you know, flowing, and he's controlling

us. There's no true order. It must be spontaneous. So that's how

we become more spiritual. But the truth is that form and freedom need each

other. They need each other. That's why I'm trying to get it.

Without form, there's going to be chaos. Without freedom, that's going to

be death. We need both form and freedom. And that is also the

message of Hebrews. God hasn't changed, our experience has changed, so let

us develop this. Why is it that we go more by our own experience

of God than other peoples? Ever asked yourself that it's normal all of us

will do that? And the answer is we always trust our own judgment better

than other people's judgment. Normal and normal, Okay, if we have experienced

something, we will accept that we found authority. Then we acceect someone else's

experience. So if a man says to me, well, to me,

God is like this, and I say, well, that's not how it

is to me, who do I think? Of course, I'll take my

own personal experience. But we praise God for the man of faith who are

prepared to go by other people's experience, who are prepared to believe that God

is the kind of God who Noah experience, whom Abraham experienced, whom Moses

experience, and to take this Bible as a book of their experience and believe

that as and have a balanced approach to Almighty God. Amen. So let's

look back at Hebrews Chapter twelve, verses eighteen to twenty one. You're still

with me. I didn't lose anyone, right, Okay, Mount Sinai.

Let us look first at their experience, because what was he talking about?

First he talked about Sinai. Then there Moses, and then there other people,

and then there was a lot of fear and trembling that after they talked

about Mount Zion, something a bit different. So let us look first then

at their experience, and then we let's go back to the most important event

in Jewish history, basically the day that God got married to his people,

because that was the ceremony that took place in Sinai, right in the middle

of the desert there among all the barren mountains. God got married to Israel

and form a covenant relationship between him and them. There was a covenantal relationship.

They were in a marriage born and from then on God called himself your

husband, and he called Israel my wife. That was the covenant that was

made. When they went after other gods, what did he accuse them of?

Yeah, adoultree, he accused them of a doultry. And that's why

when you read all some of the Old Testament prophets like Josea, Hojosea was

probably the worst of the Lord that he got the shot the end of the

stick, if you ask me, because Hosea was asked to go and marry

a prostitute. And then when everybody knows about that scandal, the headlines is

this preacher marries the prostitute. Then God goes on to say you tell them

that what they're all doing, they have become unfaithful to me. So they

are like a they're like a prostitute wife to me. That was what God

was essentially saying. So God was on that mountain and he said, don't

come near this mountain. Don't touch it. Even if an animal comes and

touches it it, you must kill the animal. That was where that marriage

took place, on Mount Sinai. This was their experience of God, and

it was an experience of their senses. It was tangible, it was physical,

and they could feel him. They saw darkness, they saw a storm.

So because there was black thunder clouds. Again, go b and read

it. You read it slowly. Their sense of touch was involved. It

was a mountain that you could touch it and yet must not be touched.

Their sense of smell was involved because there was burning, and definitely there was

volcanic activity happening in that area. They hurt thunder and they heard the sound

that later they described as the nearest thing to a trumpet blast. So,

now, how would you feel if you came to church and you saw all

those things happening. You smell those things, You smell burning like sulfur or

whatever you hurt thunder, you see lightning flashes across the sky. The building

is moving because there was a mini earthquake. Hebrew says, you ought to

feel like that anyway, you ought to approach God like that when you go

to church, because He has not changed. That's what he Brews is trying

to tell us. But naturally, how we feel become with with scatla right

now, the only thing science you'll come. If the music is tool out,

then maybe that scares you a little bit, but but no, this

is like coming. Ground is shaking. The only thing that has changed is

that we don't have that kind of sensory experience of Him today. Do you

see that difference? We have experience of Him in another dimension, but He

is just the same. So that was their experience. God's presence was real

physically you could touch, you could smell, you could hear him, you

can see him, and God was right there and everybody knew it. In

fact, their experience was not only tangible, it was terrifying. As soon

as they got there, they didn't want to be there. They wanted to

run, they wanted to go home, They wanted to back up and just

leave because they knew if God showed himself physically like that, they'd be in

trouble. And so their reaction was not to come near to him, but

to pull away. Their reaction was due to this fear. The whole situation

produced fear, produced terror, and they wanted to pull away from God.

Even Moses himself, we are told, trembled with fear. Now, what

the Letter to the Hebrews is saying is this. You may have come to

church for years and never have had such an experience. That does not mean

that God has changed. It means that your experience is different, that's all.

Okay. Now, let's take it even deeper. It talks about Mountain

Zion right now, still in mere, don't lose me. Okay. Let's

look at our experience now as New Testament believers, okay, which is quite

different. Our experience is not tangible, well, not always, of course,

I do believe God can show up tangibly. It is of things not

seen, not heard, not touched, not smell, not tasted, well,

at least not physically. All. Our experience is based on faith,

which goes beyond the sensus. It is not, therefore a sensory experience.

It's just that our experience is different. We have come to a mountain,

but not a physical mountain. We have come to a heavenly mount, Mount

Zion, instead of Mount Sinai. Mount Sinai were there physically Mount Zion.

It's a heavenly mountain. And so do you understand the difference here? Mount

Sinai is the place where God gives his demands, his laws. It's the

same place where all the tankm moments. Mount Zion is the place where you

are at home. We've God. It is a heavenly mountain, not an

earthly one. And that is our experience, and it is totally different from

their experience in the Old Testament. But God is the same. So we

have not only come to a mountain. We have come to a city.

That's what the scripture says. Go and read it. Read it slowly.

You will see it. It is crowded with population. We meet God in

a heavenly city, not in a wilderness like before. This experience has drawn

us closer, for we have come to a living God, as they did,

same living God. They came and they wanted to pull away, and

they didn't want to listen. We came and we want to draw here and

we want to listen. Why. Well, I'll tell you why. Because

we don't see God sitting alone on the mountain. We see him surrounded with

people. Go on reading it, it says a city full of people,

and then it says we see thousands upon thousands of angels. So you have

come to the Living God, and you have come to angels in a joyous

assembly of celebration. That is what makes us want to celebrate. We like

to celebrate. These angels started singing when you were born again. They were

celebrating up there as soon as you repented of your sins. That's why we

say, if one is safe, the whole heaven rejoices. So they have

come to that. They are seeing God, not just as one judge,

one person there meeting out discipline and punishment. But they see now differently is

Mount Zion. They see angels. And then it goes on to say,

we have also come to the Church of the firstborn? Is there in your

scriptures? I'm not lying now the expression firstborn? What does it mean in

any family? In the Bible, there is one person in the family inherited

all and it was the firstborn. So a father's business was inherited by the

firstbond. And so it says we have come to the Church of the Firstborn,

and every member of the church is of Christ, is the firstborn,

because everyone is going to inherit and everyone is going to have it all as

believers. That's why God has got no grandchildren. All of us are children

of God. That's what Jason declared just now. So to come to the

Church of the Firstborn does not put me off. It actually draws me closer.

The privilege of being a part of the fellowship, the privilege of being

a part of Christ Church, and finding everywhere in the world I have come

to this Church of the Firstborn. You can step into any church in the

world and you realize you are stepping into the Church of the Firstborn. I've

come to be with God's people. And then not only that, essays we

have also come to the spirits of just men made perfect again. Read the

scriptures. What does that mean? That refers to the men and the women

who have died and who are now perfect. They were righteous on earth and

now they have been made perfect. So to summarize all this, when you

are in church, you are in the Church of the firstborn. There are

thousands upon thousands of angels rejoicing and watching what happens in the service. They

rejoice if one person comes to Christ. And we have also come to the

spirits of just men made perfect. We are surrounded with and by a great

cloud of witnesses, the communion of Saints. That doesn't put us off,

That actually draws us towards it, towards the Church, towards God, the

Living God, in the midst of his angels, his Church, his saints.

What more could you ask for? That is our experience of God today?

Does that now make sense? That's what the scripture is essentially saying.

It is totally different from the Jewish experience on Mount Sinai. Why has God

changed? No, not in the slightest. You have come to the Living

God, the Judge of all men. It says, you're the same God

that they met at Sinai, the Judge of all men, exactly the same

title, exactly the same God. They came and they met the Judge and

they wanted to run away. We come and we meet the Judge, and

we now want to run to him. Why not just the crowd of angels

and people around him, But there is someone else actually mentioned it is because

we have now come to Jesus, the mediator of the New Covenant. It's

there in your scriptures. We are not filled with terror. Why not because

the blood of Jesus now speaks louder. Do you know? All the blood

shed in the Old Testament, every ounce of blood that was shed in the

Old Testament, cried out for vengeance, punishment, retribution. All the blurred

shed did not take away sins, but it spoke about the price that needs

to be paid, about the cost of sin, which has to be paid

in blood. That is essentially what it was in the Old Testament. But

when Jesus died, his blood did not cry out for vengeance, did not

cry out for retribution. It cried out for mercy. That was the difference.

Even the first bloodshed in the Bible, whose blood was shed in the

Bible? The first person take a wild gas able Abel killed murdered by a

cane, his own brother in the first family, there was a ready murder,

And God said to King, your brother's blood cries to me from the

ground. What did he cry for? He cried for punishment that can be

punished. In other words, that which stands between me and this God of

Sinai. Now is the blurred of Jesus. Even at Sinai, they took

the blood of animals. They sprinkle it on the fans, they sprinkle it

on the mountains, they sprinkle it on the people. That was blurred everywhere.

But all he did was remind them of punishment. But not now.

I have now come to Mount Zion, and now the blood is sprinkled on

me, not for vengeance, not for punishment, but for pardon and mercy.

So the blood of Jesus now stands between me and the Living God,

and therefore I am protected. Therefore, here am I in the same position

as a Jew. At Sinai, we were all sinners facing the Living God.

And I'm not running away. I'm not terrified because I have come to

the mediator of the New Covenant. There is someone between me and God,

and there is something between me and God. That someone is, of course,

the mediator, Jesus, and the something is his sprinkled blood. So

I'm not frightened to worship the Living God. I've come to Mount Zion,

not Mount Sinai, and my experience is different. So what is the position

in today's Church, because ultimately Heaven must rule by revelation. We are in

a greater danger than the Jews of Sinai. And why I say this because

when you read on in the scriptures it actually explains it. Because the thought

of God's holiness was so obvious to them, that the fear of God was

in them. It is not so obvious to us. And therefore we,

with the greater privilege of a more wonderful experience of God, we tend to

take God less seriously. If you went to church and there was fire and

thunder and trumpet blasting and the building is shaking, maybe you will take more

notice of God than you are taking of Him right now. And the danger

is that, because God doesn't manifest himself in the same way we take his

word, likely we don't pay so much attention to it. The Letter to

the Hebrews say is quite simply, if they did not escape when they refuse

him who warned them on earth, how much less will we if we turn

away from him who warns us from heaven strong words. So he's actually a

strong warning. They in the past had an earthly, tangible warning. We

have a spiritual, heavenly warning that that places, actually a greater responsibility on

us and how we respond to God's word, not a lesser responsibility that sometimes

we think or it's lesser. Now. No, Therefore, there should be

a greatest sense of reverence in us, not less. There should be a

deeper sense of listening and obeying His word than there was in those dramatic surroundings

of thunder and lightning, fire and whatnot. Yet here is the tragedy.

Do you see that in our churches today? Again, I'm not knocking anyone,

but it's for us to reflect, because even I had to reflect when

I'm studying this word and preparing. Do we hang on to God's word like

it's our very dear life. It's a question that I ask myself, Do

I really hang on to God's word? Or do I just pay lip service?

Or is that is it just something perfunctory that means I don't have to

take it seriously. Our experience is different, but the revelation has all always

been the same. His word is the same, and his word states that

at Mount Sinai he shook the earth. But his word states that He's going

to shake not only the Earth, but space and all the planets in it.

The heavens is going to be shaken, and God is going to take

this whole universe and shake it. It's in the scripture it says that shake

it. It's going to shake everything out that is not lasting, and only

the last thing will remain strong. Now, what will you lose when he

shakes the universe? I'm almost done. I'm surprised, But as we continue

on towards the last bit, and I want us to respond in the old

song, I stand in all of you, what will you lose if he

shakes the universe. Well, you can lose your house, you can lose

your car, you can lose your business, we can lose church buildings.

All created things can be lost. What will you keep when he shakes the

whole universe and only the unshakable things remain. And there is only one kingdom

which will remain. That's what scripture tells us, and that is the Kingdom

of Heaven, the Kingdom of God, the kingdom to which ears as believers

belong to see, Mount Zion will stand, the Heavenly City will stand.

Jerusalem will stand when all other cities are shaken. And that's the truth in

scripture. For you see God is not only father, he is fire as

well. Remember, just now, I say some people won't preach this portion

of the scripture because we don't have the concept of God as an all consuming

fire. But it says that no God is fire. He's all consuming fire.

And thank God, we are not just by as best toss today,

because if we are only covered by as best toss, we've been in great

trouble. But we are covered by the blood of Jesus. And how do

we work this all out practically? I know there's a lot of theory,

a lot of scripture, but it ends very practically. Not by setting the

Old Testament against the New. Don't do that. No, the God of

the fire dead is the God of mound sign and that is for the jewels.

That's not for me. No, don't do that. Don't say I've

got a nice God. Now I can come to him whenever I can chea

chat with him. No, don't set the old against the new. We

must recognize that God is still a consuming fire, and he is still going

to shake the earth and the heavens once more, and he's going to shake

out everything and everyone who is not eternal. By recognizing death and then coming

to God with two things. You must come to God with two things,

two attitudes of heart and mind. And this is where he Bros Is teaching

us the practical part of it. What must we do? How must we

come to God? Therefore, firstly in reverence and all in coming to church.

You came near the Living God. It is of his mercies that we

are not consumed. He would just need to say one word and the entire

building and everyone can actually go up in flames. But that is not happening.

That is the God you came to. So we must learn the meaning

of the word all when we stand in His glorious presence. That is the

first practical thing we need to learn. The second thing is this, we

must approach him with gratitude. What do I mean by that? And that

is all in your scripture? Read it the fact that we are not burn

up now like everything else, but that we are covered by the blood of

Jesus. Now we can climb right into the presence of God true faith,

and you can stand there in his holy presence. I don't need to kill

bulls and goads and sheeps. We can stand there in His holy presence.

I think really that should lead us to gratitude. So Church, as we

start the year, Heaven rules by revelation and I pray that we will learn

to be more grateful and we will always approach God in reverence and in awe.

We hope you've been blessed by this message. For more information on our

church, please visit as church org. We are also active on Facebook and

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I hit for you. God bless