Dennis Tuuri

But they escaped not and refused him that spake on earth. Much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven, whose voice shook the earth. But now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word yet once more signifies of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receive the kingdom which cannot be moved.

Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is the consuming fire.

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Younger children may be dismissed now to go down to their Sabbath schools, their parents willing.

This morning, our topic will be the shaking of the nations from Hebrews 12. And we’re going to expand the reading we just read a little bit to look at the context of the shaking to get a little bit of picture of it.

And to really handle this text correctly, I’ve decided to speak about it in two portions. The first portion being an examination of the pictures that God puts before us in this particular portion of scripture. There’s some progression and some contrast involved here. And we’ll look at that progression of mountains, of altars and temples, and of shaking judgments. And then we’ll talk about implications for this church, for us individually, and for our nation as well.

I’d like to begin by looking at the progression that this text before us places on mountains. We read beginning in verse 18 of this text, you are not come under the mountain that might be touched. And I might just point out there that I think what the reference there means is the mountain that is physical, that is earthly. As we look at this text from which this is taken in Exodus 19 in a couple of minutes, we’ll see there’s a prohibition for people not to touch the mountain.

The point is here that you haven’t come to the mountain that might be touched. In Exodus 19, they had approached the mountain that was physical and could be touched. And that’s what’s being stressed there. But in any event, the first mountain he points before us here is one that could be touched and earthly touchable substance as it were. And one that burned with fire, nor into blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, which voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them anymore.

For they cannot endure that which was commanded. And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart. And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake.

Now, to understand this first mountain, we must look at the occurrence that’s being described here. And there is something being described for us here, and it comes out of Exodus 19.

If you’ll turn there for a couple of minutes and look at those verses. We won’t read all of them, but it is good to look through it briefly to get a picture of this first mountain in our mind—that of what occurred there in Exodus 19. God has delivered his people and he brings them forward to hear his law and to really enter into covenant with them in a sense. He tells them in the first verses of Exodus 19 that he has delivered them, that he is the God that has saved them.

He reminds them of that and then he tells them that he is going to give them a law and the people of Israel respond to God and to his command word to them by saying yes, we will obey the word of the Lord to us. God then has the people get ready for him coming to them on the mountain and giving them the law. And so we see in Exodus 19 and through the verses described there, this preparation as it were.

Verse 6 talks about what God has in mind for the covenant community. He shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel. Moses came, called the elders of the people and laid before their faces all the words which the Lord commanded him. Verse eight, all the people answered together and said, “All that the Lord hath spoken, we will do.” And Moses returned the words of the people unto the Lord.

Verse 9, the Lord said unto Moses, “Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, and that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and believe thee forever.” And Moses told the words of the people unto the Lord. And the Lord said unto Moses, “Go unto the people, and sanctify them today and tomorrow. Let them wash their clothes, and be ready again the third day, for the third day the Lord will come down in the sight of all the people upon Mount Sinai.”

And so this first mountain that God puts before us in Hebrews 12 to describe the resultant shaking is the mountain of Sinai at which he gave his law in which he presented himself to his people by various manifestations. He told Moses in verse 12 to set bounds above the people that they not break through unto the mountain. If they did break through into the mountain, they were to be stoned or shot through with darts.

And the idea is that they were completely unclean then by breaking through and touching the mountain. And so no hand to be laid upon them where the transmission of uncleanness would occur. But God’s judgment would surely come upon them for breaking through. And God promises then to come to Moses, and indeed he does in the verses that follow in Exodus 19. In verse 14, Moses went down to the mountain to the people, sanctify the people, they washed their clothes.

Verse 15, he said unto the people, “Be ready again the third day. Come not at your wives.” And it came to pass on the third day in the morning that there were thunders and lightning and a thick cloud upon the mountain, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud so that all the people that were in the camp trembled. This was a terrifying experience. In other words, we have lightning. We have loud thunder.

We have the voice of God coming upon Moses as he goes up to the mountain to receive the word of God. And we have a loud trumpet blast. And we have a very frightening situation going on here. The voice of the trumpet is so loud that the people who are in the camp tremble. Verse 17, Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God. And they stood at the nether part of the mount.

And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke. There was smoke on the mountain. Why? Because the Lord had descended upon it in fire. And the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace. And the whole mount quake greatly. This is the shaking that we’ll be talking about in a couple of minutes. The mountain shakes, quakes, and God descends upon it in a fire. And we have resultant smoke. And when the voice of the trumpet grew, it sounded long, and waxed louder and louder and louder.

In other words, we have a very frightening experience, a very loud trumpet sound getting louder and louder. Moses then speaks unto God and God answers him by a voice and the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai on the top of the mountain and the Lord called Moses up to the top of the mountain and Moses went up and then Moses receives the commands from God. So the first picture of the mountain that’s set before us here is a very frightening experience, an appearance of God upon a physical mountain.

God coming down in fire, smoke, thunder, lightning, loud trumpet blasts that make everybody shake and tremble. And Hebrews 12 tells us specifically that Moses shook himself. He was exceedingly fearful and he quaked before God.

Now, why was this so terrifying and frightening to the people? Well, it’s pretty obvious if you think about it. We have sinful men here who are coming near unto the living God who burns in holiness and righteousness in perfect conformance to his own being. We have a totally holy and righteous altogether God. And he is drawing near to himself a people that are not righteous and holy who quake with an understanding of their own sinfulness before God. There’s a separation between the holiness and the sinfulness of the men involved at the scene in the prohibition of even touching the very mountain upon which God would come down upon and manifest himself.

Sinners have no part in God’s holy mountain in their own sinful being. They could only approach God through the covenant mediator role of Moses. And then later Moses would take Aaron, the prophet and the priest, who pointed to the coming of Jesus Christ. That was the only way that mountain could be touched by the mediators of the covenant that pointed to Jesus Christ. Sinful man has no approach to God apart from the covenant mediatoral role of Jesus Christ pointed to by Moses and Aaron.

God descends in fire then consuming the mountain or the top of the mountain as it were. And so there is thick smoke as result of his fire. That’s the first mountain that’s put before us in Hebrews 12.

But Hebrews 12 goes on to say that you haven’t come unto this mountain. But verse 22 says, “Ye are come unto Mount Zion and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of the sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel.”

Instead of Mount Sinai, instead of the mountain that might be touched, that was of earthly substance, we have come to Mount Zion. Instead of a mountain that burned with fire, we have come under the city of the living God himself, who is a consuming fire. Instead of blackness and darkness, we have come under the heavenly Jerusalem, in which there is no night, where the Lamb is the light forever and ever. Where all sins that men would seek to commit in darkness are brought into blazing light of God’s glory and of his indwelling spirit.

Instead of a tempest, we are come unto innumerable company of angels, the immediate messengers of God’s storms and judgments. Instead of the sound of a trumpet, we have come to the general assembly and church of the firstborn convened before God. Instead of the voice of words, we have now come to God, the judge of all, the speaker of those words himself, and to the spirits of just men made perfect by his word.

Instead of a quaking mediator, Moses, sinful man, we have come to Jesus, a fearless, totally holy and righteous mediator.

There is a progression then in the administration of the covenant that we see in these two mountains. The last verse ends with an interesting statement that we have come to Jesus instead of Moses, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel.

And this reference precedes Mount Sinai and refers to Abel. We have come to the one whose blood speaks better than that of Abel. And I take this to mean the blood of Abel offered in sacrifice before God. Abel is the first recorded instance of bringing a bloody as it were sacrifice to God. And God finds that acceptable. Now I think that’s true because in Hebrews, chapter 11 verse 4, “by faith, Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts, and by it he being dead yet speaketh.”

And so Abel has put forward the chapter before this, the first reference to Abel in this book is to one who brings sacrifice. And so we’ve come unto Jesus who brings a better sacrifice, his blood, rather than the blood that Abel brought of the sacrificial atonement of another animal making atonement for his sins pointing of course to the work of Jesus Christ.

These rites then take place upon altars. Obviously Jesus’s giving of his blood and Abel with the first giving of the blood of the sacrifice that God called for him back in early history of mankind took place upon altars. And I think while it’s not immediately evident from the text before us, if we think about it a little bit, we’ve seen the progression of these mountains also a progression of altars and a progression of sacrifice.

Now that’s rather obvious if you look at this as a progression of administration of the covenant that we move from the mountain from which God’s word speaks but we also in that movement of the covenant we have a progression in terms of altars or temples as well and this last verse tells us that we don’t come now to the blood of Abel sacrificial atonement of the part with the substitutionary atonement of an animal but we come to the one whose blood speaks better than that Jesus Christ to which was pointed forward and so the second thing we want to get in our mind in this picture that we’ve had this progression of mountains.

In this last verse, we now have a progression of blood sacrifice as it were. We want to dwell on that just a little bit and see this progression of temples and altars that’s laid before us. As I mentioned, we can begin with Abel’s altar. That’s specifically referenced in the text before us. But I think that the fact that we have in the first mountain on Sinai smoke mentioned and God descending upon the top of the mountain in fire indicates also that we have an altar in process there or imaged as it were in that picture of the mountain.

Now, that may not seem readily apparent, but if you could turn to Ezekiel 43 with me, please. Ezekiel 43. We’re going to look at a couple of verses there. 43:13. We have here, of course, the instructions to Ezekiel of the temple and a building of a temple that obviously if you get to study this out very much cannot possibly be built. It refers to the temple that Jesus Christ would offer his blood. In other words, the heavenly temple and manifest that to us.

But what I want you to recognize here is that it says in verse 13, these are the measures of the altar after the cubits. The cubit is a cubit and a hand breadth. Even the bottom shall be a cubit and the breadth a cubit and the border thereof by the edge thereof roundabout shall be a span. And this shall be a higher place on the altar. And from the bottom of the altar, verse 14, from the bottom upon the ground, even to the lower settle shall be two cubits, and the breadth one cubit, and from the lesser settle, even to the greater settle shall be four cubits, and the breadth of one cubit.

What is all this? You’re saying, I don’t understand these words. Well, if you look at what’s going on here, if you take the time to draw this out, as he gives the instructions of these dimensions, you’ll see that this altar has a stair step function to it. Okay? There’s a border, a ledge of one cubit and two cubits this way going up to another one. And then at the top of this structure that’s being built up in a cascading fashion is the altar on top of that.

And specifically here in Ezekiel 43, there are three different terms used in the construction of that altar. There’s the subbase and there’s the thing that the subbase sits upon and on top of that is the altar itself, the literal altar where the burning would take place. Well, it’s interesting that if you look at the etymology of these words involved, we have some implications for what talking about in this in this progression of mountains and also the progression of altars in it.

I’m going to read from Colin Dich’s commentary and I’ll read you their translation of these verses. I won’t get into all the reasons why they translate it this way. You can study that out for yourselves. But here’s the translation of verse 14. And from the ground framework of earth to the lower enclosure, two cubits in height and a cubit in breadth. And from the small enclosure to the greater enclosure, four cubits and one cubit in breadth.

Verse 15. And the mount of God four cubits and from the hearth of God upwards the four horns. You see the word that’s used in verse 15 and that some of your Bibles may have a footnote that says Ariel there in verse 15. So the altar shall be four cubits and from the altar on upward shall be four horns. Those are different words used there. And the word used for the thing that goes upon the subbase is the mount.

Okay, that’s a more literal translation of what that term meant. In the New World dictionary, a description of the etymology of this word is as follows. The base, the first part of this altar that’s built in Ezekiel means literally bottom upon the ground, bosom of the earth. The next word Ariel or Ariel translated altar in verses 15 and 16 may be Hebraicized forms of Akkadian heirloom, one of the names for the underworld, which had some secondary meaning, mountain of the gods.

Now, the New World dictionary is not a particularly evangelical dictionary. The point is they show a little bit of the etymology there and they show why in good scholarship Kuyper for instance that second word in this progression the building of the altar is translated mount or it could be and also translated with the Akkadian term the mountain of God and at the very top of this mountain you have the hearth proper and that’s a better translation of that word altar that’s where the burning occurs. Well, so what you’re asking me you know what’s the what’s the deal here? Well, the what I’m trying to point out here is that when we get to the archetypal altar as it were that’s described in Ezekiel that points forward in a fuller sense the progression of the covenant mediation of the Old Testament to the coming work of Jesus Christ.

What do we see? We see a symbolic mountain as it were in the very architectural structure used. And we also see terms in the Hebrew here that have roots in the same concept that the altar is basically a mountain the top of which is a hearth or a burning place. And you see that fits so well with that image in Exodus 19 repeated in Hebrews 12 of this mount of God that has God descending on the top of the mountain in fire smoke coming up as a result of the fire going out at the top of the base of the top of this mountain and in comparing the mountains the Hebrew text in Hebrews tells us specifically that there’s a progression from the blood of Abel okay to the blood of Jesus Christ the blood offered upon the altar as it were and so the mountain also brings into the writer of the Hebrews the context of a progression not just of mountains but a progression of altars and sacrifices as well.

Very important to see that.

Now another indication that this is correct is that you remember they fenced that mountain in Exodus 19. You used to have this picture these two mountains and the old mountain was a touching mountain you could touch was fenced off by Moses at God’s command. They couldn’t approach it. They couldn’t even touch it. In the same way the altar the sacrificial system given to Moses in the following chapters of Exodus couldn’t be approached by the layman. Only the Levite could approach to burn at the altar and they were to guard that altar.

Remember we talked about the guarding function of the Levites. They were to consecrate the things they would use for the service of God that no one else could break through them as it were. And if a person broke through to the altar under the old covenant sacrificial system in the temple, that person then had violated God’s sanctus, God’s holiness, and that person was liable to a death penalty.

And apparently there’s been a lot of commentators in the rabbitic writings as to whether or not the Levites were supposed to kill the man directly or whether God would kill the man. And there’s indications from of course the leprosy that came upon the king who decided to offer offerings himself that God would in his own fashion miraculously intervene and execute his death penalty of the person.

The point I’m trying to make is there’s a correlation between the altar and the holiness of the altar and the unapproachability of it on the part of the lay and the mountain itself that’s fenced off from the people so they can’t break through and touch it. There’s a sanctus there. There’s a holiness that can’t be broken through.

Now, it’s also interesting, one other indication of this progression of altars is thought of the fact that the reference to shaking, which we’ll get to in a couple of minutes more directly, is a quotation, of course, from the book of Haggai. The book of Haggai has its central theme, God tells the people, “Build me the temple. You’ve been restored back to the land. You’ve got your own houses now. Build my house. Build my temple. Start my sacrifices up.” That’s the whole thrust of the book of Haggai. And God tells them that they will have to do that or they’ll be cursed by him. And that if they build that temple, he’ll bless them. We’ll talk more about that in detail in a couple of minutes, but the point is that in Haggai 1:8, and we’ll look at the reference now, but Haggai 1:8 says God tells them specifically to go up to the mountain and use the woods there that’s on that mountain already and build my house on that mountain.

And they then build a temple before God, which they we’ll talk about later the implications of that particular temple. But the point is that also the reference to Haggai points out this progression not just of mountain but of mountain altars as it were. Ezekiel’s mountain altar, Haggai’s temple on Mount Zion, the fencing of the mountain as the altar is fenced and the plain reference to Jesus’s sacrificial blood all point to the two mountains as mountains of sacrifice of covenant mediation with God.

There’s a progression of mountains, but a progression of altars as well and of sacrifice. And this is the background then for the verses that talk specifically about the progression of shakings that talked about toward the end of Hebrews 12.

One other thing as we go into this idea of the progression of shakings or judgments is that Solomon’s temple, you may remember this, was built upon a threshing floor acquired by David in Jerusalem. Upon God’s holy mountain as it were in Jerusalem, there was a threshing floor. And it was upon that threshing floor in which shakings would occur prior to the building of the temple that the temple was built. And so we have a correlation there also to shaking and to judgment and to winnowing out chaff from the wheat.

The third point in this progression is the progression of shakings or judgments. In verse 26, we’re told that the voice then shook the earth, but now he has promised saying, “Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heavens.” And this word yet once more signifies.

Now, to get the proper image in our mind here of the shaking. We have to recognize what shaking means in the scriptures and in the context of these words. Obviously, shaking in the scriptures refers to judgment by God. And that’s what’s being talked about here as well. Just a couple of verses here. Nehemiah 5:13. Remember those there were those who had taken us and enslaved the covenant members in violation to God’s law.

And Nehemiah made them make restitution to those people and to vow and pledge not to do that again. And then at the end of that, Nehemiah a little ritual there, a little thing that he does that reinforces this concept of what’s going on. Nehemiah shakes out his garment and he says that thus may God shake out every man from the house and from his labor that perforth not this promise, even thus be he shaken out and emptied.

And all the people said, “Amen.” It’d be as if when a person brings forward a child for baptism and in bringing forth the child in that bringing forward of the child recognizes the child is God’s and belongs in God’s visible covenant community then he has an obligation to rear that child in the faith it be as if we then said had a garment up here and shook it out and said if this man doesn’t do this may he be shaken out of God’s world as it were and God’s work may be shaken out of God’s garments and so shaking in the Bible refers to that process whereby people that walk in obstinate refusal of God’s law are shaken out by God in judgment Paul did this as well.

This is not just a Old Testament function. Paul shook out his garments when the Jews resisted the preaching of his word. And then he turned in his ministry to the Gentiles. He preached to them. But upon their rejection of the preached word, he shook out his garments and he said, “The blood be upon your head. The blood’s no longer on my head.” Obviously, a reference to the watchman instructions in Ezekiel.

We have an obligation to preach to people. We have an obligation to demonstrate to them in some fashion in the fashion that God shows here with Nehemiah and Paul was to shake out your garments. We have an obligation to tell people who refuse the word of God they stand under the curse and judgment of God Almighty. We have an obligation to do that. That’s part of the preaching of the gospel. And you remember other places in the New Testament, you were to shake the dust off of your feet against that town as a witness against that town, a visible sign as it were that we’re take we’re talking about this morning is progression of shaking.

The shaking is a visible thing that demonstrates God’s wrath and judgment against people who ignore him. And so we have in this shaking a shaking of heaven or earth rather and then a shaking of heaven and earth. We have a progression of judgments here as the covenant moves forward from mountain to mountain from word to word from altar to altar and sacrifice to sacrifice moving toward the final consummation of all those images in the coming of Jesus Christ that’s accompanied by an increasing judgment upon those that would refuse that voice of God that’s manifested through that covenant that’s mediated by Jesus Christ ultimately.

And so there’s a progression of judgments by God in this picture of shaking.

So in part one here of our first of our two parts here. The first part we saw a progression of covenant development with Abel. We saw the meager beginnings of covenant satisfaction got based upon God’s substitutionary atonement of animals then pointing forward to Jesus Christ. By the way, another verse we could have looked at is Genesis 15:17 where we have another mediation of the covenant through Abraham.

And again there you’ll find references to darkness and to God moving between the slain animals, the sacrificial animals obviously in fire consuming them as it were. And so we have the same idea that’s pictured in Exodus 19. We see the presence of God in this covenant process. We see the coming covenant mediator who would be the true blood which the blood of the sacrifice of Abel pointed toward who would be this animal torn in half as it were in the judgment of God that Abraham had administered to him by God.

The way that we rip apart the loaves later at communion today to remind ourselves that Jesus Christ was ripped apart as it were took upon himself God’s judgment and curse for us in that role of covenant mediation to remind ourselves that Jesus took our judgment upon himself.

He would be a bitter Moses offering himself up on God’s altar hearth to be a soothing aroma to be a whole burnt offering acceptable to God and the sprinkling of whose blood would usher us into the very presence of God on a daily basis now in the new covenant order established by his work at Calvary and his resurrection and ascension.

The progression of covenant administration pictured in these two mountains and the accompanying things that we’ve talked about is pictured before us is accomplished or accompanied rather by a progression of the special presence of God, a progression of the sacrificial system and importantly a progression of the strengthening demands and commands to those people to obey the law of the covenant and a progressive judgment and shaking that a movement of God and shaking throughout history throughout the nations throughout the history of men and nations that comes out of the progressions of the covenant.

That’s the image before us as we consider what the implications of the shaking of God is in our land today. That’s the picture I want you to have in your mind. You might see it’s a nice powerful picture, but what does what does this mean today? What practical significance does it have for America in 1988? And I’m reason I turn to this text this morning because I think it has great significance for us and tremendous implications.

The first implication I want to talk about is that a failure on the basis of this picture what God’s taught us in Hebrews 12, we should recognize that a failure to approach God circumspectly in special worship will lead to judgment, to a shaking out of the person involved from God’s garment or from God’s house. We have a transition as I said now some commentators see this transition as one totally from wrath to grace as opposed to a progression of grace as it were and as a result of progression of wrath upon those that would spurn the grace.

Now I just want us to look at verse 25 for just a minute here. Verse 25 says, “See that you refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escape not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh in heaven.” The whole point of these references is not positing cheap grace. It’s not the absence of God’s judgment in the new covenant. The point of verse 25 says, “On the basis of this progression of covenant mediation, we are under even stronger obligation to fulfill the word of God has preached to us as we write it in his word and as God administers to it to us through the Holy Spirit.”

The transition is not a lessening of judgment. The transition is a heightening of those people. The judgment upon those people, the shaking as it were that will accompany those people that reject God’s law. The admonition to faithfulness is premised upon an increased severity of a new covenant judgment. Okay. Now, these references before us these references before us then have to be seen in that context. By the way, I wanted to mention one other verse and shaking that you might want to talk to your kids about.

In Acts 28:5, remember Paul there’s a serpent that comes upon him and he shakes off the beast into the fire and felt no harm. You can take that picture home with you as you go home to your children to try to describe them the shaking process, the shaking out of those people that would bite and harm God’s people into the fire of God’s judgment. But based upon this idea that the transition is a heightening and not a lessening effect, that has implications for what we do in special worship.

Dana Chosen in Days of Vengeance quotes from a man named Milton Terry and also a man named Carrington. I’m going to read this portion of scripture to show the relevance of what we’ve just talked about to what we do in special assembly and special convocative worship before God. Milton Terry rightly remarks on this text that we have come to Mount Zion in the in the following words remarks the following.

The heaven of our apocalyptus is the visional sphere of the glory and triumph of the church and no marked distinction is recognized between the saints on earth and those in heaven. They are conceived as one great company and death is of no account to them. Thus, the entire passage serves to illustrate how saints dwelling in heavenly places in Christ Jesus are all one in spirit and triumph no matter what physical locality they may occupy.

Carrington remarking on this says that Zion is neither in Jerusalem nor above the clouds. It is the whole assembly of the saints living and departed. This reference then to coming together to this general convocation of all the saints living and departed has implications for us and has implications what we do in special convocative worship as well. We come to God in a special sense on Sunday. And that sense is heightened in this transition of the covenants.

There implications first of all in special worship for communion. And we talked about this a little bit last week. I tried to from Deuteronomy to show you the importance of covenant affirmation that accompanies the taking of communion downstairs. We approach communion in a special the special presence of Christ in communion. We should approach communion with some degree of fear and trembling. It was interesting at the Christian Reconstruction Conference two weeks ago.

There was a Episcopal priest there and I was talking to him late one night at the hospitality suite and he has done a lot of extensive reading in the history of the church et cetera. And I don’t know if he’s correct or not but I’ll tell you what he told me about the iconostasis. Now that’s the wall that icons are put up on in the Greek Orthodox in the Eastern Orthodox church. He maintained that the origins of the iconostasis this barrier between the people and behind the wall where the priest would go and administer communion and would participate in those rites was originally a fear of the people from even beholding the elements of communion that would exist behind that wall.

And he said that in the western church, the verbal iconostasis, which is that the priest would administer in Latin and the people in the congregation would be doing their prayer books and their whatever they were doing out in the pews in their native tongue. That was a verbal fence as it were between the people and the sacraments. And his contention was, and I’m not sure about the historical validity of this, but it’s an interesting point.

His contention was that the people are the ones who demanded that because they were so frightened of partaking of the elements unworthily or of seeing them in an unholy state. Now, that seems pretty ridiculous, doesn’t it, to us today? I mean, we come to communion and we’ve got some bread there and we’ve got some wine and it’s no big deal. We think, “What is wrong with these people? They were just a bunch of superstitious crazy people or something for wanting this verbal fence between them and the this loaf of bread that certainly can’t hurt us. They’re really ridiculous, aren’t they?”

Well, now there’s no doubt that there was superstition involved in that and it was not a proper sense. But on the other hand, it is a profaneness on our part to come to the table and to think of that bread and that wine is totally harmless when it’s used in the proper sense or improper sense rather. You see, Paul reminds us that to take communion unworthily can result in sickness and even death.

We should have a healthy regard for the elements of communion. You see, this progression of covenant mediation has implications for us as we go to the one institution that God has specifically given us in as a sign of the work of Jesus Christ as a remembrance of that and are partaking in the covenant mediation work of Jesus Christ and applying that to our lives. What I’m saying is we should approach the table with some fear and some trembling.

We should be preparing what we do on Sunday on a weekly basis in this church with some godly coming to God the night before Saturday night and coming to him and searching out what you’ve done wrong in the week and confessing before God and moving on. Now, you don’t want to, you know, obviously I’m not advocating a movement toward the superstition involved in the iconostasis. But what I’m saying is that we have erred far just as radically on the other side in the modern 20th century church that likes anybody take communion.

No big deal. It’s just kind of a way to remember Jesus Christ. Paul says that it can bring death to us if we partake it unworthily. It is important. It’s set apart holy to God in a sense. And we ask God to do that when we go down to communion in the same way that sinful man cannot approach that bread in his own sinfulness, we must come in the garments of Jesus Christ or we suffer the judgment of God.

We come when we drink the communion wine downstairs, we come to the one whose blood speaks better than Abel. To the one whose blood we drink at that communion table, we dare not profane that blood. The same book tells us that He who despised Moses law died without mercy, including the prohibition against touching the mountain. Of course, how much sorer punishment, transition of wrath here against those who would violate God’s word.

How much sorer punishment, worse punishment, suppose ye shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden underfoot the son of God, and have counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, not important, not set apart, not sanctified, and hath done despite unto the spirit of grace. We participate in that sin which brings wrath from God against us when we approach the table lightly and ignore the sins of our life and don’t confess those before God and beg for him to give us the grace not to do that in the week to come.

The voice that shook the earth that spoke from earth rather than that shook the earth was judgment against those who would approach the mountain as it were as an unholy thing. What shall the voice that speaks from heaven that shakes heaven and earth do to the one who approaches the table as if it were an unholy thing somehow? and with no sense of consecration and preparation for it. I praise God that we have weekly communion in this church and that we have the refreshing that Jack talked about last week in churches that do that.

It’s an important thing. But you see, we have to be careful that we don’t just see it as an empty little thing we do downstairs after the main service up here. That’s not what’s going on. It’s important. And weekly communion can lead to a disregard of it as it were. And we must remind ourselves continually not to let that happen. But it’s not, you know, if you now, if you’re a little bit frightened this morning and think maybe I should go downstairs later, that’s obviously not what I’m saying.

Communion is important. It’s the mediation of grace. We’re going to talk about that as we move toward the conclusion of our sermon in a couple of minutes. But plus, there’s something else we do in this half of the service that also we must approach in a holy consecrated fashion. You know that after the sermon here, I’ll sit down after we pray, we’ll sing a song. During the singing of that song, people come up and deposit their tithes and offerings in the box.

And there’s a verse printed on your order of service there that talk about present yourself as a living sacrifice. Now what I’m pointing out here is that when we come up in response to the preached word and say yes God we want to obey your word the way the people said we’ll do all you command us to do. When we come forward in obedience whether you bring a nickel, a dime or what however much money you bring is almost irrelevant in a sense.

The fact is that you come forward giving yourself as a sacrifice to God reconsecrating as it were yourself in obedience to the preached word if it was preached in the truthfully and faithfully the scripture. Of course, point I’m making is that also is not a light thing. It shouldn’t become a light thing to our children to come up every week and put their tithes and what they’ve earned this last week into the box.

We must teach our children by word and by example. That a consecration to God in that sense should be looked upon in a very special sense. We must have preparation for it. We must recognize that consecration element. We must not treat that profanely. Either Jeremiah 7:8 says, “Behold, ye trust in lying words that cannot profit. When ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom you know not, and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, we’re delivered to do all these abominations, will you come forward in cheap grace is what he’s saying.

To think you can do whatever you want in the week, that there’s no judgment for me against you when you come forward looking for that cheap grace as it were and not come forward repentant of your deeds, your evil deeds. No, that’s a violation of the holiness of God. And we must be warned off from that this morning in the text before us.

But secondly, our approach to God and special worship must be circumspect or we’ll be shaken out in God’s judgments. But secondly, our approach to God in all of our life must be circumspect. You see, the new covenant, the mediation of the covenant and the progression thereof speaks to a voice that creates heaven and earth that is no longer a localized phenomena. It encompasses the whole earth the way that it did not in the old covenant in this progression. All of our life now is to be set apart and sanctified to God.

We don’t come to communion and that’s the one holy thing we do all week. Communion speaks of the rest of our life, the rest of our day as we go into the week taking what God gives to us, thanking him for it, using it for his purposes. We consecrate ourselves on Sunday and every morning when we get up, we should understand that this is the day the Lord has made. This is the day which he’s given. We have the power of the Holy Spirit to walk in obedience to his law and to walk in holiness and circumspectness.

Now, obviously, we’re going to sin. We’re going to fall short of the righteous demands of God. And there’s the blood of Jesus Christ that speaks better than the blood of Abel to make intercession when we fall short of his righteous commands. But that should never ever be seen as some sort of license to go into the week and not walking circumspectly in obedience to God. All the world is God’s house and God’s temple in a fuller sense now than it was of the old covenant.

In progression and so everything that we do must be seen as set apart and holy to him.

Third, the present judgments pictured in shaking are unavoidable, necessary, and good. Little different perspective I suppose that they’re unavoidable is rather obvious from the text before us. Maybe what I think I’ll read another quote from David Chilton’s book. Actually, he quotes from John Owen to the applicability.

You’ll notice that I put in that point C there. The present judgments pictured in shaking are unavoidable, necessary, and good. There’s a sense in which that judgment, that shaking that occurred with the coming of Jesus Christ and his work 2,000 years ago, there’s a sense in which that did everything once for all. But there’s a working out of that in history as well. John Owen, who said that shaking was accomplished definitively in Jesus Christ also said the following about that shaking.

Although the removal of Mosaic worship and the old church state be principally intended by these verses in Hebrews. In other words, which was effected at the coming of Christ and the promulgation of the gospel from heaven by him. Yet all other oppositions unto him and his kingdom are included therein. Not only those that then were, but all that should ensue unto the end of the world. The things that cannot be moved are to remain and be established.

Against all opposition whatever. Wherefore, as the heavens and the earth of the idolatrous world were of old shaken and removed, so shall those also of the anti-Christian world, which at present in many places seem to prevail, all things must give way, whatever may be comprised in the names of heaven and earth here below, under the gospel, and the kingdom of Christ therein. For if God made way for it by the removal of his own institutions, which he appointed for a season, what else shall hinder rather its establishment and progress unto the end?

The point Owen is making is that shaking of all things that we’ve removed is a present shaking as well. We have a world today filled with dross as it were that must be burned out. A world full of evil men and evil deeds that must be shaken out in the process of history. And so there’s a present judgment. No longer a localized appearance and judgment, but all the heavens and the earth progression in the extent of the judgment as well.

All things movable, all sinful activity, all dross must be purged out in the process of history. And that shaking goes on today. So it is a present shaking.