Growing Up Together - Part 2 (Hebrews 12:12-24)

So, church, um, let's stand for the reading of the word together. And we are in our mini-series, "Growing Up Together." And, um, in this portion of the book of Hebrews, so very powerful. Chapter 12, uh, I'll begin in verse 12. And if you guys pick it up in verse 13. Are you guys okay? You're very quiet tonight. Are you guys good? Excellent.

"Therefore, strengthen the hands which hang down and the feeble knees. And make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed."

Wow, verse 14. "Pursue peace with all people and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord. Looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble. Lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears."

Verse 18. "For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire and to blackness and darkness and tempests. And the sound of a trumpet and the voice of the words, so that those who heard it begged that the words should not be spoken to them anymore."

Wow. For they, and by the way, you see the parenthesis right here? This is actually what is known as a parenthetical insert. So, this is the Holy Spirit using the author, we think it's Paul, giving you insight. For they could not endure what was commanded. And if so, as much as a beast touches the mountain, we'll find out what that means tonight. It shall be stoned or shot with an arrow. And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, "I am exceedingly afraid and trembling."

Wow. But, you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels. To the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect. And this one verse alone at the end is worthy us of a of a night or a study all in itself. Listen to this. To Jesus the mediator of the new covenant and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks of better things than that of Abel.

And all God's people said, "Amen." This is deep stuff. You may be seated, everybody. Deep stuff. Indeed. This is part two of what we started looking at last time together. And when we did that, we looked at this very, very powerful thing. Verses uh, 12 to 13 opens up with uh, this theme of ours, growing up together in the body of Christ. This is written to Hebrews. I stressed that to you last time. Uh, the book of Hebrews is written to what was to be born-again believers. The author is testing them regarding that. To be born again is a must. Of course, we know this. Jesus said so.

Recently, I had somebody tell me that they were visiting here and they went and they told they went back to their particular church that they were brought up in and they had questions. And so, they went to their priest and they said, "I went to a church service recently and they said you had to be born again to enter the kingdom of heaven." And the priest told that individual, "That's nonsense." Your reaction is exactly what mine was. Jesus Christ himself said to a Jew, Nicodemus, "You must be born again. You must be born from above. There's no heaven without being born a second time."

And so, the Hebrews are those who have come out of Judaism or I should say understood now the Old Testament scriptures having their fulfillment in the new and ultimately, of course, in Christ as Messiah. And so, the author of the book of Hebrews is saying, "Make sure you know what you're talking about. Make sure you know what you believe." That's why so much of this book, since we've started this book, uh, is one that will address the Jewish belief system and or uh, statements that pertain to the Jews. Very powerful.

And so, we saw this in verses 12 to 13 and that is that growing up together in the house of the living God. That's who we are and that's what we do. And so, when he talks about strengthen the things that remain, when he talks about the feeble hands, uh, tired and and and the knees, the legs, the body being being uh, in in need of strengthening. We talked about how you and I can become very, very uh, weary and tired at doing good. It's great to do good. We're commanded to do good and we want to do good, but we can become tired at it. And so, we talked about that and and I trust that last week was encouraging because one of the things that we learned from that was we we need to stop running around in circles. We need to run straight. He talks about that in verse 13. And we mentioned in the closing that we need to be people that like Paul, the apostle, who went through all of these things of being shipwrecked and beaten for Christ and left for dead, that he made men- mentioned that when he ran, he ran in such a way as to receive the prize. Right, believers? Listen up. Every single one of us are to be very diligent to discipline our Christian life to win the prize. What does that mean? To come across the finish line victorious. Living victorious is something that you don't have to wait on later to see how it goes. It's it's something you can do now. You can start right now. And, um, it's it's it's it's the only way to live this life out fully in in my opinion. It's to go for it.

And then he talked about how he's not one to buffet the air. Remember he talked about like as as one who trains themself and as a fighter or as a boxer or as one who contends, he says, "I don't beat the air." In other words, I don't I don't run around aimlessly and I don't waste any of my uh, strengths on silly things. I bring my body under subjection and my mind as well. And I know for some people that might sound like limitations. Yeah, yeah, thou shalt not, thou shalt not and thou shalt not. I hope you don't view the relationship that you can have with God that way. That's a bummer if you do. And I'm telling you right now, I I upon myself self-impose- I grew up in the most- I didn't I say grow up? I I found or Jesus found me when I was 19. I'd never gone to church before my life. But, the church I went to, when I say I grew up, I got saved in a church that was powerfully teaching the word of God and with a great, perfect, wonderful understanding about God's grace and the law of God. The law of God is to drive you to Christ and the grace of God is how you're saved. You trust Christ and what he's done for you and the grace of God rescues you. The goodness of God, the favor of God. The law cannot do that. MOSES CANNOT DO THAT. WAS MOSES GREAT? MOSES was great. Is the law great? The law's perfect, holy and pure and just, but it can't save you. This is why I stress to my Jewish friends, "How do you obtain salvation?" And they'll say, "By my good works." BUT, MOSES SAYS THAT DOESN'T WORK. The Ten Commandments cannot save you. The the practices of the law and all that God gave in the first five books of the Bible, nowhere in there do those actions promise salvation. Everything about those first five BOOKS POINTS TO GOD BEING THE SALVATION.

And so, we'll see this tonight, but bring- being one that's been brought into the family of God, it's a it's it's a family of the living God. It's life and it's not thou shalt nots. It's thou gets to. Thou gets to do this and thou gets to do that because we've been liberated and set free. And, um, man, I'm grateful that I grew up in a church like that because I'm I'm I tend to be legalistic. And so, that was really hard for me. I got- Listen, I was happy, sort of. And then I heard the gospel and I heard the gospel and then I was miserable. I'm I'm like not a good one to have, you know, if your friends are here tonight saying, "Oh, you know, give your heart to Jesus." Well, listen, I I thought I had the world by the tail. I was making too much- I was making more money than my dad at the age of 18. And it was all legal. Don't look at me like that. It was all legal. I paid my taxes and it was all legal. I was making a bunch of money. I was doing whatever I wanted to do. And, uh, and then I heard the gospel and all that it's like it's like Jesus took a carpet and went like this and snapped it and all of my world just flew apart like toys flying off of a rug. And, um, he just took me out at the knees. And when I when I heard the gospel, I knew that it was true, but I had a hard time receiving God's love for me because I had not performed enough, you see, to earn God's love. I hadn't prayed long enough. I hadn't given enough money. I hadn't brought enough people to Christ. Are you with me? Are you tracking? And it was like, okay, it's all merit-based, right? Because I grew up in a Marine Corps home and that's how it is. You do this and that and the other thing and you get a pat on the back or you get a star on the chart. Or you or you or you don't get beat. So, I took that into my Christianity. And a lot of men, by the way, I know this because of buds. A lot of men are challenged by the relationship that they had with their dads, but when we come to Christ, we convert that we take it over into our relationship with God and we we view God like that. Now, women are different. Many women, not all, it's I'm generally speaking, but women seem to cuddle up to God much easier than men do. And, uh, men, I'm not encouraging you to get in touch with your with your feminine side, but, um, I am saying that there is something to more women attending church, more women show up to prayer meetings. Uh, if there's a men's retreat on a particular weekend, the giving here at church goes up because only the wives are here, only the women are here. If the women go away on a retreat and only the men are here, the tithe goes down. Did you know that? I shouldn't have told you that. It's a fact. What a strange thing THAT IS. WHAT'S THAT ALL ABOUT? WE need We need to walk in the love of God, but at the same time this is a love that energizes because we get to live our lives now. We We serve the living God.

And so we jump in now to where we left off, verses 14 to 17, and it's this, that we are growing up together in the house of the loving God. Verse 14 says, "Pursue peace with all people and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord." This is not a command. This is not an assessment. This is not something to be beaten over the head with. It reads like this, "Because you are a believer and you are in the family of God, you will be driven by the Holy Spirit to pursue peace with all people. You will have the heart to want to make up or make reconciliation. You'll be a peacemaker." We learn this from Jesus's Sermon on the Mount. The Beatitudes. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall see God." That's not Listen, that's not some people cuz you know he goes down the list, blessed are those, blessed are those, but it's not like, well, those must be those over there must be the peacemakers and these are the ones that No, no, no, no. This is the spirit of God at work in the life of the believer and God supernaturally works out in your life the desire to pursue peace even with your enemies. It's remarkable. And the Bible tells us that we are a holy people. God does that. We don't do that. We touched on that last week together.

In thinking about this though, I wanted to I wanted to to just brag on you guys in my mind this way, knowing of course that we were going to be together tonight. In my head, I just saw this Have you ever seen those neon signs that are written kind of vintage looking and and it says like, you know, uh, open or eat at Joe's and there's a neon finger and it's like a little cafe. You know what I'm talking about? In my mind, I see this this sign over you and it says like, "Live tonight." And, um, what would be live tonight? You. You. You displaying the love of God to one another. You came in here today, tonight, and we didn't record you on camera, but we should have. Because I would have played it back because before the service started, you're all talking together, you're meeting each other. Some of you were praying with each other, greeting. And that's love and it starts there. And it's a beautiful thing. You got to remember that when it's time to leave the parking lot. It's you you've got You keep it going. You keep that going. You keep pursuing that peace and that love, but God is working in us and the truth of the matter is that whatever somebody might, uh, say or view or believe about you, the bottom line that they cannot deny, and they struggle with this cuz they want to find something bad on you. Your your family. They want to nail you. They want to say, "This is You see, LOOK AT THEM. THAT'S WHY I CAN'T BECOME A CHRISTIAN. LOOK AT THEM." They can't say that. I mean, WE'RE NOT PERFECT, BUT WE'RE THE MOST LOVING thing in town. Think about it. When there's a need, you love. My goodness, I'm so blessed by the continuous, uh, pictures I'm getting from you helping day after day and it's going to be probably for years. You You're sending me photos of you in Altadena or Pacific Palisades with all of the relief efforts taking place. By the way, I got a wonderful letter from, uh, Franklin Graham and he wants me to tell you guys thank you very much and please keep it up. That's love. And being in the family of God is experiencing the love of God. And that comes out of us.

In verse 15, it says, "And looking carefully lest anyone falls short of the grace of God." I'll explain that in a moment. "Lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble and by this many become filed." So, now defiled. So, now he's going to give us a warning. It's very very wise. In In my notes, as you can see, I wrote down, uh, issue this like a issue a warning, issue this weather warning, icy conditions ahead. Have you ever seen that? Warning, ice on bridge or road out. You know what he's saying right here? He's saying, "Listen, love one another, keep going for it, maintain that love, strive to keep the unity of the body of Christ, work at it." And I mean this sincerely. I mentioned it a week or two ago. If there's divisions among you, you better get it fixed. Okay, we're church fam We're for real. This is not a pretend church. This is not a show church. Show Sh- What am I ch- a show church. I'm telling you because we are commanded to love one another, if someone over here is chewing on someone over here, okay, we're going to get you guys together by the ears and pull you over and we're going to make you say I'm sorry. We are a body. We're for real. It's a family. And we and we're preparing ourselves for heaven. We're getting ready for heaven. We're not earning our way to heaven. That's impossible, but we're getting ready to put on Christ every day of our lives and to exhibit that love.

But listen what he says here. He says, "Watch out. Be careful. Be ever mindful lest anyone that is among us falls short of the grace of God or of the favor of God." Why? Because a root of bitterness can come up. Two things mentioned here combined. Bitterness is the slightest taste that's off. You know that thing, um, we've all done this, right? Do you do this? Do you Do you open up, uh, the carton of milk and do you sniff it to make sure, especially if you've been gone for like a week and you come back and it's still there and it's like, did somebody replace that? I don't know. Not going to take any chances and you give it a sniff and you process. Isn't it? You just and then the computer starts going. What are you What are you looking for? THERE'S THAT LITTLE THERE'S THAT LITTLE SMELL. And I don't know how women are, but guys are like this, "It's not too bad." Right? The coffee will the coffee will hide it. Or if you're like me, I'll just put hot sauce on it. If this If it smells right, get the get the Tapatio, get the Tabasco, it'll be great. Well, listen, when you taste something that is that's just a little off, the rancidness, the rot has already begun. That's why your brain is wired in such a way with your taste buds, which by the way, I just read recently, did you know that we only use 33% of our our taste buds. 33%. THAT'S ALL WE CAN USE. Our brain Just wait, can you imagine when we get to heaven in our resurrected bodies? Can you imagine when we bite into an In-N-Out burger in heaven? We're just going to go like this. A banana, whatever you eat. In a fallen world, we have 33% connection between our taste buds and the brain. What's going to happen when it's 100%? What's going to happen when we have 100% perfect eyesight? What's that GOING TO BE LIKE? IT'S GOING TO BE AMAZING. WELL, IT'S GOING TO BE HEAVEN. It's going to be amazing.

But here's the danger. A little root. How little is a root? It's amazing to me. Yesterday, I planted bulbs. Ranunculus, you know, ranunculus, anybody? They're the the bulb is as ugly as sin. It looks like something from another planet. You put it in the ground, you know what happens? You put it in the ground and the chemicals are the I should say not the chemicals, the elements of the earth that's native to earth. The bulb dies. The bulb is like in a suspended state of existence in the bag indefinitely. When you put it into the earth, it dies. Did you know that? You say, "Well, you Jack, you got that right." Yes, the moment it dies, it shoots out a microscopic root. Isn't that weird? In its death, life begins. And as the root begins to go down, it starts to grow upward until it breaks through and is resurrected from the ground. It must first fall into the ground and die before it brings forth much fruit. Or in this case, beautiful bouquet colors, right? So, here's the thing. A root of bitterness does the same thing in the negative. It will destroy a relationship, it will destroy a family, it will destroy a church. It will it it it devastate a culture. Bitterness. We live in a culture right now that's bitter at everybody. Everybody's angry about something. And that's very sad. The great thing is if you want to have healing in your heart, you need to tell God straight up, "I have a bitter heart." And how do you know you if you have a bitter heart? Because everything that you taste tastes rotten. And the tragedy is, my friend, if you allow this to happen in your life, everywhere you go, you leave rot. It's the way it is. Have you ever heard these old sayings like, you know, everything that guy touches is destroyed or whatever? Wherever they go, there's a wake of destruction. That's exactly it. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 31 says, "Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you. Shove it away with all malice." Strong words, great words. That will save your life. Colossians 3 verse 8 says very much the same, "But now you yourselves are to put off all these things." What are they? Anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Listen, you cannot exercise those things and the Holy Spirit in you, he will not allow it. You can try these things as a believer. You can backslide and these things will come out of you, but the Holy Spirit will chastise you. He will put you on notice. And the warning here is don't let that happen to you. Tonight, if there's any bitterness, clamor, anger in your heart, you need to deal with that. You need to ask God to heal you. And, um I know it's very quiet here right now, but we all this happens to all of us at some point in time. You say, "No, not me, pastor. Not Yes, you. And you want to just maintain that. The Bible uh tells us to who to walk in the fear of the Lord. That doesn't mean you're like spooked out. It means to walk in the awe of God. We're going to see this here, this awe approaching.

And so in verses 16 and 17, we see that he says something here to us that is quite shocking. He says in verse 16, "Lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau." Stop right there. Esau, Jacob and Esau, right? We all know this. Yeah, we're studied about him. Esau, these two guys were twin brothers. I mean, they were twin brothers, kind of sort of. Uh Jacob is an interesting guy. You read about Jacob. Jacob uh his name refers to heel catcher. He's in the womb They're the the two boys are in the mom's tummy arguing. They're They're at war with each other. And you ought to read about it later in detail. It's It's the beginning is kind of funny. Uh Esau comes out and he's all red and hairy. Jacob seems to be very tender guy. They grow up together and Esau is um he's a man's man. He's out in the field. He's hunting. He's dirty. He's got uh you know, he rolls around in the mud. He He's a He's a guy. Where's Where's Jacob? He's with his mom. Jacob's in the kitchen. Uh In the What I love about the Bible is that it doesn't it doesn't make up these little fantasy families like everything's perfect. That was a rough family, man. That was That was a That was a rough go. And these two boys, I tell you, they butted heads all their lives. But listen, Jacob's heart, he was a conniver. Jacob was a sneaky dude. And when you read about Jacob's life, it's like, man, really? But the guy had a heart for God. Esau, Esau was self-reliant. There's nothing wrong with being self-reliant unless you become self-dependent and not God-dependent. And Esau was not God-dependent. He took the things of God lightly and sold his birthright for a cup of soup. Literally. But the Bible here calls him a fornicator and a profane person. Did you know there's nowhere in the Bible that that mentions at all that Esau was a fornicator? Doesn't say whatsoever. So, what's it What What's happening here? Is it making a comment on his life that he was immoral? Maybe, maybe not. Or is it making a commentary on the fact that he was spiritually a fornicator? Did you know that the Bible speaks about you can be I could be a spiritual adulteress? Meaning this, we love other gods instead of the God. And the Bible says that we can become adulterers when it comes to our relationship with God. That's powerful, isn't it? And by the way, I don't want to get off on this, but look, it's a sin to rob a bank. It's a sin to commit murder. It's a sin to lie. We all know that. But the Bible says sexual sin is different. It When you commit sexual sin, the Bible says it affects your own soul. It It changes you. It causes you to see life, yourself, and others differently. It's different. It's spiritual. It's not just physical. There's something about it. And the Bible will use this in inter- in a interconnected way.

And so Esau, who it says, "Look, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected. For he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears." This is heavy stuff. People, listen. You guys okay so far? Listen to this. Esau, when he sold his birthright, he gave up what was precious. I I want to say this carefully, but I must say it accurately. If you have not truly committed your life to Christ in faith, you can say tonight that you believe in Jesus, that you believe that God exists, but you've never been born again. You've never stepped over into that world of believing with all your heart that God's salvation is adequate for you. He's got your life. You come uh sin and all, warts and all. You come as you are to him and then he transforms your life. He does that. I call it and I've said it for decades. You've heard me say it. If you've not come to that moment of a faith crisis, I pray that you do. Where you have that encounter with God, where you know that you know that you know. And if somebody put a sword to your throat to to deny Christ, you you you would have to say to them, "Look, I just want you to know if you go any further with this sword to my throat thing, if I wind up panicking and I and I say that I deny deny Christ, I'm going to be lying to you. I can't do it. I just can't do it. Because you've been made so sure by the Holy Spirit who resides in you. This is the life of the believer. And how does that just make sense? HOW IN THE WORLD CAN YOU BE COURAGEOUS or stand firm or hang in there or face death without this being true? Thank God it is true and we can face those things and we can exercise those things.

Esau, when he realized, "Wait a minute. Dad, can you bless me?" Well, I already gave the blessing. I mean, you could go in a hundred directions on this. When the blessing was spoken, it was spoken upon Jacob. And then when Esau says, "Well, how about mine?" Listen, do you remember what the word that was given? The word given was, "I already I I'm sorry, but I I just blessed I pronounced the blessing on Jacob." And And Esau said, "Don't you have something for me? Don't you have some kind of a blessing for me?" And Isaac says, "I I it went out of I already made the I already said the word." People, listen. He couldn't change it cuz the words went out of his mouth already. Now, we need to remember that. What we say, it matters. And apparently, when it goes out of your mouth, God says, "That's that's settled." So, Jacob gets the blessing. Esau wants the blessing, but Esau his heart's not in the right place. He wants a blessing for what? Prosperity's sake? He wants a blessing for some other sake? He doesn't want the blessing for God's sake. And the Bible calls him a fornicator. I think it's referring to his spiritual lack of nature. And that his birthright was nothing. I want soup. Well, Jacob says, "Then give me your birthright." Now, look, that's Jacob conniving. I mean, that's brutal. But through Jacob's conniving, Esau's heart was revealed. That's painful stuff. The Bible says in Genesis 25:27, "So, the boys grew and Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, but Jacob was a mild man dwelling in tents." He stayed indoors a lot. And Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebecca loved Jacob. Now, Jacob cooked a stew and Esau came in from the field and he was weary. And Esau said to Jacob, "Please feed me with that same red stew, for I am weary. Therefore, his name was called Edom or red." But Jacob said, listen to this stinker, "Sell me your birthright as of this day." And Esau said, "Look, I'm about to die. So, what is this birthright to me? What good is it?" Then Jacob said, "Swear to me as of this day." So, he swore to him. And sold his birthright to Jacob. Verse 34, "And Jacob gave Esau bread and stew of lentils. Then he ate and drank and arose and went his way. Thus, Esau despised his birthright." No value of spiritual things. He didn't make the commitment. He heard about the same God of Abraham, but he never made the commitment.

We want to be very careful, church, that in our own lives, bitterness, anger can choke out the truth. Listen, everybody, Matthew chapter 13 is the great chapter of the parables of the sower and the seed. You're familiar with that, right? It's terrifying if you read it because out of the four types of soils that that are mentioned there and the events that are taking place, three of them are not saved people. Some of them Some of them wouldn't receive the word at all. Satan took it away instantly. Some of them believed for a little while and then the summer heat came and the seed barely had a chance to grow and it withered away in the heat. And then And then the other group, they believed and it says Jesus said, "These are they who believed for a while." And listen, how long is a while? It doesn't say. Don't be one of those who you claim that you've been a believer for 25 years, but the Bible says Jesus said, "But after a while, they went back into the world." And then the fourth, of course, is the one where the word of God took root. And how do you know it took root? This is going to sting, especially if you were here last Sunday and now today. Listen, I'm I'll make it personal. I won't point at you. I'll point at me. How do I know that my walk is real? How do I know that I am not a fraud? Because I have to assess my private life to see if there's any fruit that glorifies God coming out of my life. It Does the word of God produce anything in my life that others can partake of or that others can see? This is the Christian life and this is the examination. The Bible tells us, "Examine yourself." This is important. It says Scripture says, "Examine yourself for you to determine whether you are in the faith or not." Notice, it doesn't say "Examine your neighbor to see if they are in the faith or not." Because salvation's personal. He's a personal savior. His relationship to you is personal. And Jesus wants you with him because he's a personal God and he loves you.

The third thing in verses 18 to 21 is this is that growing up together, that is in the house of the holy God. Verse 18 says, "For you have not come to Listen to this. The mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire and to the blackness and darkness and tempest." What do you What mountain do you think he's talking about? Yes, who said that? Right? Sinai. He's talking about Mount Sinai. All of a sudden, remember I asked it last week, who's the book written to? The Hebrew believers. Mount Sinai is a big deal to them. The giving of the Ten Commandments. Moses goes up to the mountain. Joshua stays at the base. God gives his law. The mountain is quaking. Listen, try to put this in your mind. In fact, I wish I could take you right now. If you're ever in Washington, D.C., uh there's so much to see, but one of the things you've got to go to. I think it's on 8th Street. 8th and G Street or doesn't matter. You got to go to the Smithsonian Institute's museum, the National Portrait Gallery. And in there, I forget who the painter is, but there's these massive paintings and one of them All of these incredible oils and they're just spectacular. And one of them is a a painting of Mount Sinai. And here's the image and it's right out of the scriptures. The sky, this mountain that you cannot touch. God comes down upon Mount Sinai at the giving of the law and it's thundering and quaking. The mountain is shrouded in blackness, it says, and storm. And there's FIRE THAT GOES FORTH. There's lightning that's happening. And there's voices, as the scripture says, AND IT'S LOUD and that there is a trumpet that is speaking. And the earth shook. And the Bible says the mountain moved at the voice of God. This is not a story. This really happened. And the children of Israel even commented on it. They said, "Moses, we don't want you to talk to God anymore. And if you do, we don't want to be near it." And they backed away from the mountain. And God said, "If anybody gets Listen, if anybody gets near the mountain, they're going to die. You can't live." Watch this. This is very cool. Here's God. Here's sinful man. God comes down out of heaven and inhabits this this mountain top that the rocks are scorched. All of this stuff is taking place and it's terrifying. And that that artist covers this I I just stand there. If you ever get a chance to get Just Just look at it. It's such a great rendering of what took place and the children of Israel were terrified. And guess what Moses said? Moses said, "I was terrified and I trembled." And God says, "Moses, come up here." Oh. Can you imagine? What was he thinking? What would you be thinking as you're as this the ground is shaking? You know how Look, come on. You guys, if we have a 5.0 right now right here, See, Pastor, don't say that. If we have a 5.5 here right now, you're going to go, "Whoa, wait, wait." And the first thing if you're a native Californian, your first thought is, uh "Well, it's kind of nothing." And And you know, kind of starts moving again and you think, the first thought is could this be the big one? Right. I mean, the big one. It's the big one. We always think about, is the big one? Can you imagine Moses walking up going up Mount Sinai, which has been uh found. Mount Sinai is a known location now. They In fact, you well, you can't go up it. You have to get a special permit. It's fenced off by the Saudi Arabian government. But can you imagine the ground shaking and Moses is going up the mountain and the ground's moving? Hanging onto his staff, what was he doing? What would you do? It had to be amazing. And the thundering and the over the top. Imagine what he felt like. How tall did he feel? How small did he feel? He's a holy God. And he's awesome, the Bible tells us. Listen, but God says you can't you can't come. You can't come to the base of the mountain, it will kill you. In fact, if an animal or a man gets near the base of the mountain, you, other people, you've got to shoot them with an arrow or kill them with rocks. They can't They have to be destroyed because they made Listen, what's implied is that they breached an area of holiness versus sin. They They tried to get in between. And they can't live. Why? That's the way it's always been. We've never had a mediator between us and a holy God. He's He's spirit. He's holy. And the remarkable thing is God is setting the standard. There's a There's a separation between lost humanity and me, the holy God. I love you. I want you to love me, but you can't really know me without a mediator. And if you try to do it your own, you're going to die. If you're a beast or if you're an animal, I do not technically Listen, technically, God does not accept animal sacrifice even. Well, she didn't he didn't he ordain it? He did, but it never covered sin like you'd want it. It glazed over it. It never removed it. There was a mediator, but not really. An animal and its blood. But then Christ comes, who is God the mediator, who brings us to God. He's the bridge. And the entire Old Testament pointed to the coming of the Messiah. He's a holy God.

The Bible says in Galatians chapter 4 verse 21, "Tell me, you who desire to be under the law." Do you know any legalistic people who think they're going to keep the 10 Commandments? Well, here's a here's a word to them. "Do you not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons. The one by a bondwoman." Anybody know who that is? Remember that? Hagar had Ishmael. The other woman by or the other son by a free woman. Who's the free woman? Sarah. "But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh." You guys know remember that? That's where Sarah says, "Look, Abraham, I'm tired of waiting on this promise from God. It's never going to happen. Here's what I'll do. I'll give you my maid. She's young. You can sleep with her tonight. Wine wine and dine and sleep with her tonight. She'll get pregnant. The When she get When the baby comes out, I'll grab the baby and put him put the baby on my knees and that and Don't you wish Abraham would have at least said, "Then let me pray about that." Because it's all the the trouble in the Middle East is all because of that moment right there. See, right now. It's true. Right now. THAT NEVER WOULD HAVE HAPPENED. SO, SHE PITCHES this idea and he just goes, "Okay. All right." She's like, "Okay, really?" But they they were they THEY GOT TIRED OF WAITING on God. Do you ever get tired of waiting on God? I tell young people, "I'm not married yet, but I want to be married and I just And I always tell people they don't like to hear it, but I tell people, keep waiting on God. It's my advice to you, one reporter's opinion. Get involved in serving the Lord and watch how you'll meet a woman or you'll meet a man that's for you while you're serving Jesus." Watch what happens because when you're both going down the same path, Amos 3:3, "How can two walk together unless they're in agreement?" You want to meet a godly woman or a godly man? You're not going to find them at Joe's Bar and Grill. Couple years about 3 years ago, this guy came up to me and he said, "Man, this church." I go, "What?" And I'm thinking he's going to say, "It's awesome, man. The worship was great. The teaching, the people." He said, "There's hot women here." I said, "Get off. Get out. Get out of here." I mean, if you think it, you don't say it. Now great, people are viewing this and there's guys next week that's going to be all these single guys. Women, watch out. But when you're serving the Lord and you're putting him first, be looking around as you're serving and there might be somebody alongside you. That's how Elisabeth Elliot met Jim Elliot. And that turned into a legendary legendary marriage and ministry. But um be careful about that. Very, very important.

And so he goes on to say in verse 24, "Uh which things are symbolic, for these are the two covenants." Interesting. One covenant is of the flesh and one is of the spirit. "The one from Mount Sinai, which gives birth to bondage." Are you guys hearing this? "Which is Hagar." Wow. "For this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to Jerusalem, which now is and is in bondage with her children." Because much of Jerusalem, of course, at the time was not believing, not trusting. But watch what happens. "But the Jerusalem above is free." The Jerusalem above is where God resides. You know there's a Jerusalem in Israel, but there's a Jerusalem that's going to come down out of heaven in the book of Revelation. And that's where God resides. If you associate your relationship in a legalistic way that correlates to Mount Sinai and the giving of the law, you're still stuck in the dirt. You're still stuck on Earth. But our citizens Our citizenship as believers is where? It's in heaven. And what's in heaven? The Bible says there's a city in heaven. Did you know that? Think about that. A city? Yes. The city of God. It's called the New Jerusalem. And the Bible says, read the last couple of chapters of the book of Revelation, it it descends out of heaven and it will reside just over the Earth itself. Just It doesn't It doesn't seem to appear that it touches, but it's just there. And you can read the details. It gives you the city limits, by the way. Did you know that? It gives you the city limits. But I don't believe in borders. Too bad. God does. It And it's got gates. Gates. And it's got walls. Walls? You mean I JUST CAN'T WALK IN AND OUT WHENEVER I WANT? NOPE. You got to be a citizen of heaven. And that citizenship comes from Christ. In fact, Jesus said if somebody tries to get in some other way and climb over, they're a robber and a thief and they're not going TO MAKE IT. WOW. THAT IS SO politically incorrect. Isn't that awesome? Actually, I guess it currently I guess it's politically correct now. It's uh I guess it's maybe culturally incorrect. Or I guess it's maybe woke incorrect. But um Wow.

Notice this. Where are you in all of this? Are you a child of Sinai or are you a child of the heavenly Jerusalem? Are you waiting to go home or are you home? If you're home, I hope you're having a great time. But for many, I hope all, inside you're longing to go home. Back in the days in the days of the the Jesus movement in the '70s, there was this uh this cartoon. I don't know who drew it. I know Greg Laurie drew a lot of those cartoons back in those days. I don't know if he drew this one or not, but there was that guy. There was that hippie. And it was an image and he and he was saying it just said, "Just passing through." And it was a Christian thing. If every We all had the t-shirts and and it just passing through. And um that's true, you know. Now, technically we're just passing through and our mission is to bring with us as many men and women and boys and girls as is possible because if God wants you in heaven, we want you there, too.

And so the scripture says, we'll wrap this up soon. We're going to make it. It's a miracle. The Bible tells us in verse 19, "and the sound of a trumpet," that's important, "and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore." I don't want to hear it. Scary. "For they could not endure what was commanded." By the way, have you ever read that at the last Trump the last trumpet, there's the first trumpet and the last trumpet. People get confused and say, "See, the rapture's at the end of the tribulation period because there's seven trumpets." Remember that? Are you with me? This has nothing to do with the Bible study. It's a little bonus. So, the last trumpet, it must mean that the church doesn't get raptured because of the last trumpet in the book of Revelation, and that's when the resurrection takes place, and you're missing you're missing a very vital thing about it. The book of Revelation, people, watch this. If you read Genesis to Malachi, last book of the Old Testament, and you skip the entire New Testament and read the book of Revelation, it will make sense to you. You'll never understand the book of Revelation unless you read the Old. You have to read the Old Everything mentioned in the book of Revelation is first mentioned in the Old Testament. The first trumpet is the gathering together and the birth of the nation, so to speak, of Israel at Sinai. When God calls them out of Egypt, he leads them to the giving of the law. It's this trumpet. That's the number one trumpet, the first trumpet. The last The first trumpet The last trumpet has nothing to do with the trumpets of the book of Revelation. The last trumpet is found in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 when it does the exact same thing but for Gentiles, predominantly Gentiles. And that is the trumpet blast will blow, the dead in Christ will rise, and we who are living and remain shall be caught up. That's the trumpet you're waiting to hear from. The Jews heard the heard their trumpet at the formation of their nation. The culmination will be the trumpet that the church hears. That's why God told Moses, "I want you to" and I love this if you're Jewish, this is so fun. Why did God tell Moses, "Make two trumpets of silver"? Make two trumpets. He blows one. One's blown. The other one's never blown. Exactly. One's for Israel, one's for the church, the people of God. Anyway, that's a That has nothing

to do with our study tonight. Verse 20 tells us, "And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow." Don't even get near it. And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, "I'm exceedingly afraid and trembling." Wow.

And here's where we end, verses 22 to 24. Growing up together, church, in the house of the perfect God, holy, absolute, loving, absolutely living, perfect God. He's perfect in all his ways. But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, wow, to the general assembly. That word is also mentioned as being the celebration assembly. Israel and the church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect or complete. In other words, it's by faith in Christ.

Look at verse 24. To Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant. You should mark that down, everybody. What's he referring to? He's referring to the book of Jeremiah. Do you Listen, you got to write that down in your notes. What does verse 24 refer to? That Jesus will bring about the new covenant that is mentioned in the book of Jeremiah. Book of Jeremiah, start reading in chapter 31 to chapter 33, and God says there to the people of Israel, "I will do away with the commandment that I gave you on the mountain at Sinai. I'm going to end it. And I'm going to give you a new covenant, and I'm going to take what was written in stone, and I'm no longer going to accept that because I'm going to write it on your heart, on the inside of you." THAT'S THE NEW COVENANT. IS THAT IS THAT AWESOME? No more on rock. No more on stone. No No more of that. No more going in and out of a building and doing this and praying that way and doing the offering to THE BLOOD NO MORE. GOD SAYS, "NO MORE. I DON'T DWELL IN A TEMPLE MADE WITH HANDS." God says, "I dwell in you." I reside in you, every one of you who trust him. And the scripture announces that Jesus is that mediator. There's no other.

Ladies and gentlemen, listen, I I guess I saw the news tonight. The Pope said, "I'm going to die." The Pope's in the hospital. He's going to die. That Pope needs Jesus Christ. He needs to be born again right now before he dies. Why? Because Listen, alert Hello. Warning, there's no mediator but Jesus. There's no way. There's no pastor, priest, there's no pope or evangelist. There's no human that is the mediator that can get YOU INTO HEAVEN. NOT A ONE. AND CATHOLICS AROUND THE WORLD SHOULD BE WAKING UP AT THIS MOMENT. This Pope has done a lot of damage or a or a lot of good, in my opinion. He's done a lot of damage, and by doing all the damage he's done and his very woke ideologies and his destructive views on marriage and evolution, all these bizarro things he believes in, has done a lot of good. Why? Because a lot of Catholics have woken up to the realization, "This ain't it for me." And they're flocking to the one mediator. His name's Jesus. THAT'S GOOD NEWS.

AND TO THE BLOOD of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. Abel. Who killed Abel? Cain. Abel, his blood was referred to as innocent. There's one better than Abel, and his name is Jesus. Do you know him? Do you know him personally? I want to give you the chance right now. Let's bow our heads. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, almighty God, to think that the desert of Sinai shook, and the mountain quaked. The sky turned black, lightning and thundering and voices. Words were spoken. Fire consumed the mountain top. A trumpet was blaring. In fact, in the Hebrew, that word is it was so loud, it was absolutely piercing loud. If we were to combine, Lord, all these things that are speaking about your great holiness, we've got the earth shaking, we've got the darkness and the blackness of a sky, and a storm, and the brilliant fire raging. And you call Moses up into the cloud, up into the mountain. And Moses said, "You won't listen to me, people, but there's one coming, him you will listen to." Tonight, my dear friend, that one coming came. His name's Jesus. He's the mediator. And unless you choose him for yourself personally, you're lost. I don't care how moral you are. You are not God. I don't care how upright you are. You have sinned. And you need him. And none of you weigh in the balance. My good outweighs my bad. I'm okay. You're lost. You can't have any good. There is no good. Jesus says there's not one that doeth good, no, not one. And that that there's only one good, and that is God. My dear friend, tonight, can you agree that you are a sinner, that your fornication, your thoughts, your anger, your adultery, your temptations, your your drugs, your um lust, your you name it. You know it. God knows it, too. And instead of him condemning you right now, he's saying, "You're already condemned. I want to save you right now." With heads bowed and eyes are closed for you to say yes to Jesus, nobody looking around, will you just put your hand up tonight and you're saying that's it. I believe Christ died on the cross for me. I believe he rose again from the dead. I want him as my Lord and savior. If that's the decision you're making tonight, it's nothing fancy, folks, but it's reality. Put your hand high if that's you, and God sees Listen, it's not that God sees your hand. God sees your heart. And as I look around right now, I see hands raised publicly. A lot of hands. In fact, all of us, church, let's all stand together in this attitude of prayer. Let's all stand together. Those of you who've raised your hands and church, if you want to join in, that's awesome, too. You don't have to. You've already done this, but sounds cool. It's beautiful. But if you raise your hands tonight, remember that it's not it's not your hand. I don't want you to trust it. Well, I raised my hand. Nope. What happened was God convicted you, showed you your need to remind you the law cannot save you, morality cannot save you, only Jesus personally can save you. And you're going to come to him now, and you're going to come into the family of God. And so, what caused your hand to go up was that your mind did some thinking and you agreed. Lord, here I am. And so, your hand went up. Your hand didn't go up because it just your nerve had a reaction and your muscle pulled your arm up. Your will said, I'm going to raise my hand. That's where God is looking right now. Will you repeat this prayer? It's not magic, just mean it. Dear Lord Jesus, I receive you tonight as my mediator. I come to you with my sin in hand asking you to forgive me because you died on the cross for me. You rose again from the dead for me. And you've called me out tonight and I'm giving you my life. Come into me now. In Jesus' name I pray. And all God's people said, Amen. Amen. Many of you