Enduring, Embracing, and Expecting (Hebrews 12:1-29) | Sunday Worship Service

Good morning and welcome to Kootenai Church. We're glad you're here today. We're going to sing the same song we just heard, Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise. Would you please stand as we sing?

Good morning. Just a couple of announcements, maybe a little bit of a longer one actually,.

And that has to do with some construction projects that we have about ready to start here around the facility and need to make everybody aware of. We spent the last couple of months just seeking to jump through the hoops and satisfy our all-wise and benevolent overlords who give us permission to build when we want to build, and we finally were able to do that, so we can move on now to construction projects.

So this week we're going to have two things going on. One, work progressing on the upstairs, finishing that with insulators and drywallers moving in there this week, and then on Monday, and that is tomorrow, not a week from Monday, but tomorrow, there's going to be some excavation done in front of the south entryway doors, those two main doors on the south.

That's going to be excavated, and we're going to be putting in a concrete slab out there with footings for eventually the portico that is designed to be part of that building structure. So that will start tomorrow.

It may be that next Sunday when you show up, you're not able to come in those doors. If that's the case, that will be obvious to you, and you'll have to use the entrance on the west side as your main entrance and exit, and that will probably certainly be the case if you're using the building in the middle of this week.

You'll need to come in that west entrance as well, and then starting the following Monday, thanks to a very generous donation toward this end, we are going to do something that we were probably putting off for a few years, and that is paving the parking lot, and that will be a week from tomorrow, that will probably start, or that week, that third week in October.

So that will be paved and striped as well, and during that construction process, if you need to use the building, you'll need to see which entry into the property is open for you, and you'll have to either park on the grass that is on the east side of the building or on the gravel that is over here on the west side of the building, as everything from the south end of the all the way over to our western property line, all the way south, is going to be in the process of getting paved and worked on.

So just be aware of that if you're using the building in the middle of the week. Turn now, if you will, please, to Psalm 99. Psalm 99. And if, by the way, there is some construction project that is going on that prohibits us from meeting in here for a Sunday, that will either go out in the weekly update or in that emergency text update that we send out sometimes last minute.

And there's information, I think, in the bulletin if you want to be added to those so that you get any last minute changes to our schedule. Just take note of that in your bulletin. Psalm 99. I'm going to read together this entire psalm, and you can remain seated for the reading and for the prayer this time.

Psalm 99. The Lord reigns. Let the peoples tremble. He is enthroned above the cherubim. Let the earth shake. The Lord is great in Zion, and he is exalted above all the peoples. Let them praise your great name and awesome name.

Holy is he. The strength of the king loves justice. You have established equity. You have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob. Exalt the Lord our God and worship at his footstool. Holy is he. Moses and Aaron were among his priests, and Samuel was among those who called on his name.

They called upon the Lord, and he answered them. He spoke to them in the pillar of cloud. They kept his testimonies and the statute that he gave them. O Lord our God, you answered them. You were a forgiving God to them and yet an avenger of their evil deeds.

Exalt the Lord our God and worship at his holy hill, for holy is the Lord our God. Let's pray together. Our Father, it is the joy and delight of us, your people, to gather together to be called by your name and to gather together for worship, to praise and honor you, to lift high your name, to reflect upon all that you have done for us in Christ, to remember your mercies to us which are new every morning, and to remember, of course, our unworthiness to even enter into your presence apart from the work that you have done in your son.

And so we thank you that you have forgiven sinners and that you have called us to yourself, that you have chosen us, that you have changed our hearts, that you have regenerated us and given us new affections so that we may worship you in spirit and in truth.

It is our joy and delight to do so and we thank you for the freedom that we enjoy, for this place that we get to worship you. We thank you for the great grace that you have lavished upon us in Christ.

Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places is ours and even if we had a thousand tongues to sing and all of eternity to sing it, we would never be able to praise you enough or thank you enough for what you have done for us as your people.

We pray that you would tune our hearts to sing your praise and of your grace today to exalt your name as we focus our time, our attention, and our affections upon you, our great God and our King. Be exalted here amongst and through and in your people, we pray, both now and forever, in Christ's name, amen.

Please stand and let's sing the love of God.

In Isaiah chapter 30 verse 18 it says,.

Therefore Yahweh waits with longing to be gracious to you and therefore he is on high to have compassion on you. For Yahweh is a God of justice, how blessed are all those who wait for him. Let's end our music service this morning by singing Term Your Eyes.

Let's take a moment before we open God's word together to pray and ask his blessing upon our study. Let's bow our heads. Father we turn now to your word with the full realization that if it were not for your work of grace in our hearts to give us proper affections and if it were not for your work of grace to open our eyes and our minds and our heart to your word that we by ourselves would have no ability to understand your word, to comprehend spiritual things, to rightly apply it or to see your working in history and to even know of the redemption that you have revealed in the pages of scripture.

And so we we owe all that we know and understand to you and your grace and we pray that you would increase that this morning as we read and look at your word. We pray that you would be honored through the explanation of it and through our meditation in our hearts on your word.

Open our eyes and our hearts we pray and send your spirit to be our teacher and our guide we ask in Christ's name. Amen. Turn now if you will please to Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12. We're starting Hebrews chapter 12 this morning.

Having finished chapter 11 last week you might have been able to predict that the next chapter was going to be 12. Sometimes the chapter divisions that are there in the text of scripture can trick us into thinking that there is some break in the passage some break in the flow of thought and we always need to remind ourselves that chapter divisions were not added until hundreds of years after the passages were written and verse divisions were added even later than that and so it does us well sometimes I think we are well served to remind ourselves to put out of our minds as much as we can the chapter divisions and the verse divisions when we are reading and studying scripture so that we can see the flow of the passage and get the argument of the author and to read it and understand it in the way that the original audience would have because in their minds in their text there were no chapter divisions or verse divisions.

But the chapter division in this case does allow us the opportunity to zoom out a little bit and to remind ourselves of where we're at in the book of Hebrews and how all of these final passages in the book of Hebrews fit together.

There is a division at the beginning of chapter 12 or what we mark as chapter 12. There is a division in this sense the author is moving on from the examples that he gives us in chapter 11 to applying the lessons that we learn from those examples in chapter 12 and 13.

So he's done with the old testament examples of men who persevered and endured in faith. And now he's moving on to exhortations of faith. And as we went through chapter 11 we dove deep into the lives of those men and women who are mentioned there in chapter 11.

We took all of 37 sermons to work through all of those examples in chapter 11. I know it doesn't seem like it was that much does it seems like it just went by like that for all of us unless you're a post-millennialist then it felt like a long insufferable train of spiritual abuses that you wanted to get to the end of.

But for the rest of us it went by really quickly almost a year that we spent looking at those examples. But now we kind of come to where the author has turned a corner of sorts. And it's good to zoom out to kind of come up to the surface and get sort of an overview of the landscape of these last couple of chapters.

Remind ourselves of what the author has started to do back in chapter 10 actually and how that sort of unfolds all the way through the rest of the book. So that's what we're doing this morning. I'm just going to give you an overview of these next two chapters of hebrews.

We're going to go through chapter 12. I'm going to give you something of an outline of chapter 12 and and show you how the author wraps up with application and exhortations the grand and glorious truths that he has unpacked for us in chapters 1 through 10.

So chapters 1 through 10 is very doctrinal. Chapter 11 is filled with examples of the kind of faith that is the response to the truth that he gives us in the first 10 chapters. And then chapter 12 and 13 are these admonitions and exhortations these commands of what it looks like to live a faithful life.

So go back now if you will. We're not going to go back to the beginning of the book of hebrews. Certainly. But just to into chapter 10. Turn back to hebrews chapter 10. I probably should have just told you to do that instead of turning to hebrews chapter 12.

But that might have exhausted your patience. You've been. We're back in chapter 10 again like what happened to chapter 11. Back in chapter 10 the author extolled the glories of christ and his sacrifice that once for all perfect sacrifice.

Whereby in one offering he has done what millions of animal sacrifices under the old covenant could never have done namely to perfect forever to perfectly atone for and to pay the sin penalty for all those for whom that sacrifice was made.

This was something that all the thousands hundreds of thousands and even millions of animal sacrifices under the old covenant could never do. But what could never be accomplished by the blood of bulls and goats has been accomplished by the blood of god's only son.

He has perfected forever all those who are sanctified. So that chapter 10 is this explanation a long theological explanation of the superiority of jesus christ and his sacrifice to all of the forms and the functions and the animal sacrifices of the old covenant.

Look at chapter 10. Verse 10. By this will that is the will of god we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of jesus christ once for all. That is a glorious phrase once for all. Not the millions of sacrifices not the countless feasts and not the countless festivals and not all of the offerings and not all the gifts and not that priesthood.

But now we have been perfectly made complete total whole by the once and for all sacrifice of jesus christ. Chapter 10. Verse 12. But he having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time sat down at the right hand of god waiting from that time onward until his enemies be made a footstool for his feet.

For by one offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. Look down at verse 18. Now where there is forgiveness of these things there is no longer any offering for sin. And the application of this glorious truth that in the one death of christ through the one sacrificing of that better blood by a better priest to inaugurate a better covenant that he has done something that all the old testament forms and functions could never do.

The response to that the application of that is laid out beginning in verse 22. It is very simple and it is clear. You and i are to draw near to hold fast and to encourage others to do the same. You remember that outline.

We spent three or four weeks on that we are to draw near to hold fast and to encourage others to do the same. Verse 22. Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith. That is a call to faith.

You see given what christ has accomplished in his sacrifice you and i are to draw near to god and to respond in obedient faith. To draw near in full assurance of faith. We're called to respond this way to trust god's word and what it says concerning the sacrifice of christ on behalf of those for whom he has died.

And in response to that we are to with faith with belief and trust in god's word and what it reveals concerning his death. We are to draw near unto god. That is the invitation. And it is not faith to doubt the sufficiency of christ's work.

It is not faith to doubt whether or not his sacrifice on the cross was sufficient to pay the debt for all of my sin. It is not faith to wonder as to whether or not i am included in that sacrifice. Faith is expressed when we draw near unto god and believe what god's word says concerning the sacrifice and the death of christ on our behalf.

And then having drawn near you and i are to hold fast to that to endure in that faith not just to draw near and then fall back. Not to draw near and then fall away. Not to come near and then distance ourselves again but having drawn near to hold fast to that.

Verse 23. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful. This is the call to enduring faith. The examples that we looked at in chapter 11 were men and women who having drawn near to god endured in faith waited for the fulfillment of god's promise and trusted him and his word and what he said you and i are to emulate that exact same kind of faith.

The faith that draws near and then the faith that holds fast and are drawing near and are holding fast is to be done inside of a community of believing people who have done likewise they have all drawn near.

They have all held fast. And then having done those two things we are to encourage others to do the same. Verse 24. Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. And we can't leave verse 25 out of the mix because this addresses our are coming together and doing this as part of a corporate body.

Verse 25. Not forsaking our own assembling together as is the habit of some but encouraging one another and all the more. As you see the day drawing near. It's going to return to this theme of assembling in chapter 12.

But i want you to notice here we are to draw near to hold fast and then to encourage others to do the same. These things we are to do in in terms of the corporate body of believers something we do together.

And then verse 25 begins a warning sorry should verse 26 begins a warning the one who does not draw near and the one who will not hold fast to this once for all perfect sacrifice of jesus christ has no further sacrifice available for their sins.

But in the words of verse 27 they can expect nothing but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries because they will fall into the hands of the living god.

And that is a terrifying terrifying thing. In other words neglect that sacrifice. Do not heed the warning of judgment that is to come. And you have nothing to look forward to except the terrifying expectation of fiery judgment when god consumes those who will not draw near and hold fast and join with others and encouraging one another to do the same now.

That's a warning to unbelievers who are pretending to be believers. But it does not describe it does not describe those of us who are believers. Verse 39 does. We are not of those who shrink back to destruction but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.

Those with that soul preserving faith will endure all of the reproaches that are listed in verses 32 to 35. The one who is righteous by faith will live righteously by faith looking forward to as it says in verse 35 the great reward that is to come.

So that is not to say then that persevering is easy. It's not to say that enduring is simple and that it is effortless. But it is to say that all those with the kind of faith modeled in hebrews chapter 11 the kind of faith that draws near and holds fast all of them have that faith to the preserving of the soul.

And all of them will persevere and will endure all the way to the end never falling back to destruction but always holding fast and holding on to the savior who has saved them. Now are there examples of people in scripture who have drawn near to god held fast to him and endured through hostility through persecution through suffering and affliction through good times and bad to trust in something that they had to wait even a very long time to receive as a reward from god.

Are there examples of such men and women. Why. Yes there are. That's what hebrews chapter 11 is all about. And then we have this list of examples of those who have drawn near and held fast and encouraged others to do the same.

So chapter 10 shows us the necessity of faith for righteousness. Chapter 11 gives us examples of men who had faith to righteousness. And then chapters 12 and 13 are the admonitions and exhortations to those who have that faith to continue and persevere in lives of righteousness.

So we turn something of a corner at chapter 12 where we have moved on now to some admonitions and exhortations many of the and i hope you see by the way how all of this is connected how the exhortations in chapter 12 are grounded in the realities of the salvation of faith that we have in chapter 11 and chapter 10.

In fact chapter 12 verse 14 says we are to pursue sanctification without which no one will see the lord. Well that exhortation to pursue sanctification that is grounded in the amazing truth that we find all the way back in chapter 10 verse 14 that by one offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

You see it as our positional sanctification in jesus christ that enables us and strengthens us to persevere and to pursue sanctification which he has purchased for us by his death. So all the admonitions of chapter 12 and 13 those exhortations those commands these these statements that we're going to read in these two chapters they are all grounded and rooted in the realities of the gospel that one time once for all death of jesus christ.

That is what enables us to obey these exhortations. If it were not for his sacrifice on our behalf we would never be able to understand the reality of these commands. Let alone obey them with affectionate hearts that long to be sanctified and and to live righteously through that obedience.

It's all because of what christ has done back explained in chapters 1 through 10 that we are able to follow the exhortations the examples of chapter 11 the exhortations of chapter 12 and chapter 13. So as we go through 12 and 13 i'm going to try as often as we can to ground the exhortations and admonitions of these two chapters back into the truths that we have sort of seen as we've worked our way through the first nine chapters of the book.

And when we get to chapter 12 we turn something of a corner. It's a corner i guess that was turned back in chapter 10 but it becomes more apparent in chapter 12 and that is that the author is done explaining the long theological details of the old covenant versus the new covenant.

You get to the middle of chapter 10 before those that exhortation to let us draw near let us hold fast and let us encourage others to do the same. Right. When you get to that you get to the end of the long theological treaties on various subjects.

We saw that in the first 10 chapters we don't have that in the last few chapters. It's not that the death of christ is not mentioned in the final chapters because it is it's mentioned in chapter mentioned in chapter 12 and it's mentioned in chapter 13.

But it is that the explanations of those realities are in the first 10 chapters. Do you remember the time we spent talking about melchizedek. How long insufferable that was. That was some long dry stuff.

Wasn't. I mean it wasn't ecclesiastes long and dry. But it was in its own right this this long explanation of of these nuances from the old testament. We don't get that anymore in chapters 12 and 13. Now now he's all about encouraging us to live righteously in light of everything that we have learned.

So we have in chapter 12 all of these admonitions. Let me give you an outline for chapter 12. And we're going to read it here in just a moment not the whole thing at once. But we're going to read through it all before we're done today.

And then i'm just going to give you a brief survey of chapter 13. In verses 1 through 3 of chapter 12 those are familiar verses to it to you. Let your eyes just kind of look over that there we are encouraged to endure hostility.

Then down beginning at verse 4 of chapter 12 through verse 17 we're encouraged to embrace discipline that comes to us as those who are sons by faith. And then in verses 18 to 29 we are to expect the kingdom.

We are to endure hostility embrace discipline and expect the kingdom. If we're going to do just one sermon on hebrews chapter 12 that would be it. In fact if you wanted a brief description of what the christian life entails while we wait in faith for the king to return and to bring to us the reward.

I don't think you could get any better than that summary statement that we are to endure hostility. We are to embrace his discipline and we are to expect the kingdom. There is a there is a an element of perseverance there which has been a theme throughout the book of hebrews.

There is an element there of enduring the sufferings which has been a theme throughout the book of hebrews. And then there is the element of expecting the reward that is to come endure that hostility from sinners.

Embrace the discipline that comes to us from the loving hand of the father. And while you're doing that expect the kingdom. Let's look first at the example of jesus where we are encouraged to endure the hostility.

Verses one through three. Therefore since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us let us lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us. And let us run with endurance the race that is set before us fixing our eyes on jesus the author and perfecter of faith who for the joy set before him endured the cross despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of god.

For consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. See. All of the examples that the author gives to us are not just found in chapter 11.

Here is an example that comes to us at the beginning of chapter 12. But the example is not one of of is not of one who lived by faith. Jesus is not an example to us of one who had faith. Catch that everybody in chapter 11 is an example of those who had faith and persevered.

Jesus did not have faith. Jesus is the object of faith. He is the author of faith and he is the perfecter of faith. But he is not an example of one who had faith. Instead he is the one who gives us faith.

And notice the connection here between enduring reproach and the reward. You'll notice the word endure or endurance is there three times in that passage. In verse one we are to run with endurance the race that is set before us.

How are we to do that by fixing our eyes on jesus. Verse two who for the joy set before him he endured the cross. Verse three. For consider him who endured such hostility there is the theme of endurance.

Remember that goes back all the way into chapter 10. At the end of chapter 10 in that warning passage the author said to his audience. You have need of endurance so that having done the will of god you will receive what was promised.

Right. We need endurance. The mark of faith is not an emotional response to a truth that you hear or something that that comes out of man by which we just react to a song that we sing or a really good message by a really good preacher.

That is not the mark of faith. The mark of true genuine saving faith is endurance. The one who can suffer affliction the one who can face tribulation. The one who can endure through all of life's trials and come out the other end with their faith intact and their confident belief in god.

That is true and genuine saving faith. And that is what the author wants to work in us. That's what he wants to see. So if we are to ask for the most ultimate example it's not the example of faith. It's the example of jesus.

It's the example of endurance. Consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself so that you will not. What grow weary and lose heart doesn't want us to grow weary and lose heart. And notice the connection with the reward that jesus gets for his endurance.

He for the joy set before him. There's the reward. Reward has been a theme of ours since back in chapter 10. Right. Remember those who endure faith's reproach receive faith's reward. Jesus for the reward that was set before him endured the cross and despised its shame.

We do not want to be among those who shrink back but among those who hold fast to the preserving of the soul. So you want an example of endurance. It is jesus and he endured that hostility. You and i are going to face hostility from sinners.

And we can trust that even in the face of hostility that god is accomplishing his purposes he is accomplishing his work. That sovereignly all of those things come into our lives so that he may produce in our lives the peaceable fruits of righteousness.

See the affliction that comes against the righteous by virtue of their faith because they are the faithful. That affliction that suffering that hostility is not wasted. Rather it is used by a sovereign god to refine his people to purge us of sin and to set our affections on heavenly things.

So the father doesn't waste any of that hostility in the lives of his people. He uses it as a form of discipline so that we may purge be purged of sins and pursue the sanctification without which no one can see the lord.

And that brings us to verse 4. Not only are we to endure hostility we are to embrace the discipline that comes to us as sons. Verse 4. You've not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin.

And you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons. My son do not regard lightly the discipline of the lord nor faint when you are reproved by him. For those whom the lord loves he disciplines and he scourges every son whom he receives.

It is for discipline that you up there's our word again endure. This is all connected. This this idea of endurance goes all the way back to chapter 10. You have need of endurance so that having done the will of god you may receive what was promised.

You will not receive what is promised if you do not endure now am i suggesting that you will lose your salvation and your eternal reward. No but i am suggesting that those who do not endure to the end were never saved.

To begin with the mark of true genuine saving faith is that endurance that goes all the way to the end. Pardon me. Verse 7. It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline.

But if you're without discipline of which all have become partakers then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore we had earthly fathers to discipline us and we respected them. Shall we not much rather be subject to the father of spirits and live.

But they disciplined us for a short time as seemed to best of them. But he disciplines us for our good so that we may share in his holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but sorrowful.

Yet those who have been trained by it afterwards it yields the peaceable peaceful fruits of righteousness. A subject of discipline. And it's not talking about church discipline by the way confronting a brother in sin and bringing it before the body that's a different kind of discipline.

This passage is often treated on its own as if it is sort of a standalone subject. But you can see with the reference to endurance that the idea of discipline is not isolated from its context. It is the suffering and affliction and hostility that the unbelieving world pours out against the church whom the loving father the loving father uses to bring discipline into the lives of his people.

There is nothing like suffering to make us holy. I tremble to even say that lest the lord say i think jim needs to be more holy. I don't want to have to say those words. But it's true. There is nothing like suffering to make us holy because suffering reveals the true nature of our faith.

And it makes us long for the world that is to come. And it makes us see how how paltry sin is how horrible sin is and to pursue sanctification. And so the father the loving father uses suffering in the lives of his people to train us and to teach us in endurance.

You want to produce endurance in somebody's life. You give them opposition. You give them hostility. You make them suffer. That will produce endurance. And if jesus the perfect and holy son if he had to endure hostility against himself how much more you and i.

How much more should you and i. He was. Chapter 12. This endurance this righteous end the sanctification is to be worked out amongst a body of believers. Chapter 12. Verse 12. Therefore strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble and make straight paths for your feet so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.

There is a healing and strengthening purpose and discipline that the author mentions in verses 12 and 13. This purpose is to bear the fruit in the bear fruit in the body of christ. And you and i have a role in this.

So after talking about discipline in verses 12 and in 13 he wants to make sure that we apply this idea of discipline and that we we work out amongst us with each other. The purposes help help each other.

How do i say this. We we help. That's the wrong way of saying it too. We work with the lord in accomplishing his disciplinary purposes in our lives as we work in community with one another to strengthen the weak and to strengthen the knees that are feeble.

So if i see somebody going through discipline i see somebody facing hostility. There is a role for those the rest of us in the body of christ to come alongside of them and see to it that we are working alongside of god to accomplish those sanctifying and redeeming purposes in the hostility that they face.

That's the idea in verse 12 and 13. Notice the change of focus is from the individual now to the corporate body which he continues in verse 14. Pursue peace with all men. Now listen. If we were intended as christians to be isolated mavericks on our own doing our own thing isolated from the body of christ there would be no need for such a command as you find in verse 14 to pursue peace with all men.

But the reality is when you bring sinners into a congregation together seat them next to each other and do life together. There are opportunities for conflict and misunderstanding to come up. And when that happens you pursue peace with all men and sanctification without which no one will see the lord.

See to it now. These are body commands in in terms of the entire church body. Verse 15. See to it that no one comes short of the grace of god. That no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble and by it many people be defiled.

That there be no immoral or godless person like esau who sold his own birthright for a single meal. For you know that even afterwards when he desired to inherit the blessing he was rejected for he found no place for repentance though he sought for it with tears.

These are warnings to be heeded amongst the entire church body. Sanctification and holiness and righteousness is a community pursuit. We're to do this as an assembly together. The christian life is a life lived in a body of people.

It's not intended for us to be isolated and by ourselves and and out doing our own thing but to be done in the context of a local gathering together. Remember his command from chapter 10. Verse 25. Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together as is the habit of some but encourage one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

This is how we stimulate one another to love and to good deeds. In order to stimulate one another to love and good deeds there must be an assembling together of the saints. There must be a life lived out in community.

That's the focus of verses 14 and 17. Now speaking of communities and assemblings and gathering together of peoples here's another contrast between the old testament old covenant gathering of people beginning in verse 18 and the gathering that we have under the new covenant.

Verse 18. For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched into a blazing fire and a darkness and gloom and whirlwind and to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them for they could not bear the command.

If even a beast touches the mountain it will be stoned. And so terrible was the sight that moses said i'm full of fear and trembling. That's a reference to that original assembly of the children of israel coming out and receiving the law at mount sinai.

You remember the thunderings and the warnings and the threatenings. Those are for a disobedient and stiff-necked and hard-hearted people. But we're not amongst those people. Instead verse 22 says. We have come to mount zion and to the city of the living god to the heavenly jerusalem to myriads of angels to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven and to god the judge of all and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect and to jesus the mediator of a new covenant into the sprinkled blood which speaks better than the blood of abel.