All right, let's take a look at this passage, Hebrews chapter 12, beginning in verse 18, and we will again take this study into chapter 13. So let me give you, I'm gonna read this, and then I'm gonna give you the sheet, because I give you the sheet, you look at the sheet, and all this is gonna read. Yes, I am a teacher, you know. For you have not come, This is a leading statement. It is the essence of this passage. For you have not come. And then in verse 22, for you have come. So this is the crux of this passage. It's a very, very beautiful, meaningful passage. For if you have not come to a mountain that may be touched, and to a blazing fire, and to a darkness, and a gloom, and a whirlwind. This is Exodus 19. This is a description of when God came down on Mount Sinai and the people of Israel went out to meet God. Now that's the main issue, is they went out to meet God. And this particular writer is saying, you are not experiencing God this way because of the grace of God. You are not experiencing God this way So you're not going out to this mountain, or it says, if you touch the mountain, you will die. That's what that says. You have not come to a mountain to where you can touch it, and when you touch it, you would die. But you have come to something different, something much more beautiful, something that has freed you from not dying in the presence of God. And you come to a situation to where you are not approaching him in fear. Because this is the emphasis. These people were terrified of God. Because of his glory, and his majesty, and his power, and his might, and everything that he was, which he still is. But the issue was is they they could come up to that but if they touched it because of his holiness they were to be destroyed. And you can touch it and not be destroyed. That is our gift and that has been given to us by God himself. So that that is the comparison that's being made. The comparison is Mount Zion against Mount Okay, so that's the description that's being given. And to the blast, verse 19, of a trumpet and the sounds of words, which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word will be spoken to them. Okay, that's They heard God speak, and they said, we do not want to hear him speak anymore. And you and I do not have that. Okay, we have God speaking to us on a consistent basis when the soul of everyone in this room and the words that he gives to us become precious and more precious. And when we see him face to face, which this is definitely going to talk about at great lengths, okay, is that that scene It's not going to produce a death. It's not producing a fear. It's producing an enormous joy and beauty and meaning. And God did all that. We didn't do a thing. We could have been at Mount Sinai, but we, in God's grace, are now at Mount Zion. Okay? So we say, speak. They say, don't speak. Okay? The sounds of the word were such that those heard it begged that no further word should be spoken to them. I mean, how often have you gone to God and begged him not to speak to you? For they could not bear the command, if even a beast touches the mountain, it will be stoned. And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, I am full of fear and trembling, but you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. and to myriads of angels, and to the general assembly and the church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood which speaks better than the blood of Abel, then verse 25 which brings to the next section, see to it that you do not refuse him who is speaking. Okay, so it's picking up the idea that they did not want to hear the word and now you and I hear the word, okay, and because we have come to Mount Zion we want to hear the word and let it change our life. And so that's what you're seeing here in this issue. It's our heritage. It is what we have when we go through the walk of faith on the face of this earth. It is a perspective that is, Ryrie in my Bible has, this is the drive of life. This is what he titles this section, the drive of life. What is it that keeps you going? What keeps you straight? What keeps you walking? What drives your life? It is that you understand this passage and what you have. It is your perspective that keeps you clear as you walk through a valley of faith. That is difficult. So you have to get a hold of that. Becky was quoting me, she's learned a bunch of passages that are actually the passages that we have studied. Like Isaiah chapter 46, which we want a great deal. And that particular passage explains how a man does not fear. He doesn't fear because of this new relationship. We're not terrified by God, we're strengthened by God. He is not something that we're afraid of, he's our refuge. We understand that he's right there standing by us, he is a present help, thus we do not fear. It says if the world comes apart and the mountains start falling into the seas, we will not fear. Why? Because there is a river that flows in streams in the city of God, and that river makes our heart glad. It is a place where God dwells in all sorts of places, and he is ours, not to fear, but to give us all of these things. And he has given his word, his heart in words to us to strengthen us as we walk through this fear. And so that's essentially what you're seeing here. We now hear him. We now love to hear him. We are not afraid of him. He has actually banished fear. And our destiny has been defined for us so that we know there is a purpose and a meaning for the trouble that we go through. And that is not easy to grab. In fact, this morning I was having a really hard time because she fell again. And I find myself getting tense with everybody. And it's because you kind of have this sense like, not one more step of this. So you have to really turn to the Lord in the middle of that and find these words, or you'll explode. You have to find a strength that is beyond you. You have to have a strength that leads you to a rock that is higher than yourself, or you'll explode. And so those are the kinds of things that everybody in this room is experiencing, everybody. And so it is these words that he speaks to us that we do not fear. And we do not come to a mountain that we cannot touch. In other words, we do not come to a God that we cannot touch. He is just as holy as he was to them, but there was no way for them to approach. They can't approach on themselves. So they have to go through the blood that is greater than any blood that has been shed. to the media. And so that's what you find. And of course, we have a huge description of Mount Zion for us. I quoted out, I mean, that's exactly what you find in Psalm 46. He's telling you, he's your strength. He's your refuge. He's your present help. But the reason for that is, is what keeps you in perspective is because there is this place that we're going. There is a purpose in the steps. We are heading for somewhere. And we are aliens down here. We are ambassadors. But this is not where we are intended to stay. And the truth of the matter, that's almost one of the only reasons that you can keep walking. Because the next step is usually a tough step again. Like I said, this morning was a really tough step. And so, but you have to believe that God is permitting the steps because the road is designed by him. The road is his and his design and everything he is doing is working for good. And that is hard to grasp. Okay. And the only way you can grasp it is to see the absolute end. That truly is the only way that you can totally get a hold of that, okay, in terms of understanding, okay. This is all that he's driving us towards, and there's steps that he is taking us towards, and he's refining those things inside of us through the sufferings that we go through, and the choices that we make as we go through them, okay, even though we do not understand all its meaning. Okay? I'm standing here talking to you and doing fine in terms of I've had to do lots of different things. But you take somebody like my wife, who is really absolutely not in too good a shape. And if I had to go through what my wife is going through, I'm not sure how well I would come. But I look at her and her faith is still there. She still walks on a given day. and she still turns to my daughter and uplifts my daughter. I apologize. That's true, I have to hand out the sheets. Now I'm going to read just quickly, and you don't have to turn that, but this is Exodus 19, which is summarized in this verse 18, 19, and 20. I just want to give you a little bit more power to the issue that these people have been asked by God and Moses has brought them to God. And they wanted to come, but once they got there, they didn't want to come anymore. And it was a frightful, fearful experience in terms of their lives. So it came about on the third day when it was morning, that there was thunder and lightning flashes and a thick cloud upon the mountain and a very loud trumpet sound so that all the people who were in the camp trembled. Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God. And they stood at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire, and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked violently. When the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him with thunder. And the Lord came down on Mount Sinai to the top of the mountain, and the Lord called out to Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up. Then the Lord spoke to Moses." So that's the scene. This is a beautiful scene, but it's a scene of the majesty, the power, and particularly the holiness of God that is unapproachable by men. They were actually able, as somewhere around a million people gathered at the base of this hill for perhaps the first time in all of humanity, where they actually heard the voice of God and saw his glory in such a manner that it actually terrified them to death. and they did not want to hear God speak anymore, okay, because it was so terrifying to be in his presence. That is where you and I have fallen. That's what we lost. Now, it's not that we lost this fear. What I mean is we could have stood, Adam and Eve could have stood in the presence of that beauty, that majesty and that power because they were holy. They were sinless. They could have stood there, but everybody tries to stand there, including Isaiah and John and other people, Elijah, anybody who stands there feels as though they shouldn't be here because of their sin. Woe is me, because I live in the midst of a people who are part of sin, and I am a part of them, and I should not be here." This is Isaiah 6. And so this is what they're encountering. They're encountering the presence of this holiness with the understanding that they're absolutely unable to stand here, and they're terrified. Then we come back to a passage like this and say, this is not you anymore. This is not what you have anymore. And so you go back to Hebrews chapter 12 verse 22, but you have come to the Mount Zion Now, I have a listing for you, and the thing that is interesting is, as the way the list is developed in the Bible itself, in this passage that we have, the word to is the most prominent word throughout the whole passage. It's repeated over and over and over and over and over and over again. It introduces every single phrase. Okay, so that's why I listed it out for you, so that you could see it. And a lot of times when you read it in sentence form, you don't realize all the different phrases that are being used. And if you take these phrases out and look at them as just phrases, then all of a sudden you can stop and concentrate on them and see what you have. Otherwise, it's a kind of big jumble, and you have a tendency to just move through it. But if you put them out in phrases like that, and the word to in front of them, that's exactly, to, to, to, this is where you're going. Okay. But it's interesting the way it says it. So let's take a look at it. First of all, to the actual word, most of you would go, well, what's to mean? You know, we all know kind of what it means, but look it up in a dictionary. And this is what it says in a direction towards as to reach someplace. You are in the direction towards this and you will reach it. This passage comes with the idea that you're already there. This is a real complex issue in terms of time in the mind of God. Why is it that God says I'm the beginning, the middle, and the end? The reason he says that is because he's not a part of any penis. He's above it all. To him, you are already there. In his mind, you're already there. That's why he can say, I justified you, even though you're still in sin. It's a very hard, complex idea unless you can get a hold of what I just said. To God, everything is not a line, it's like a sphere in terms of time. So it's not sequential, it's all happening once, past, present, and future. That's what eternity is. And so to him, he can see that you're making movement on the linear line, but he also sees that you're already there. It's already been accomplished. everything is finished. So it's very important to get a hold of that because this little word, too, has the idea that that's what you have come to Mount Zion. You have come in the first step, but you've come in the last step. You're already at Mount Zion. You're at the city. even though you're not physically there. But God sees you there, and perhaps, as C.S. Lewis also projected, you're already there anyway. Now that's very hard to understand, but it also helps, in terms of physics, it also helps take care of all sorts of questions that are in the Bible. I mean, how does God know the beginning and the end? Well, there is no beginning and end. It's all present. Okay. So that's why he knows. Okay. How can he talk about us being there when we're here? Because you're already there. Okay. So it's, it's, but in God's perspective, I mean, we, we staying in a timeline that's linear. God is not in the timeline. Once we get there, we will be like this. It's a weird idea, but at the same time it's also something that helps explain a lot of doctrinal ideas that are problematic as to what's going on. So, you have come, you're already there, though you're still walking. You have already come to Mount Zion, to the City of God, to the heavenly Jerusalem. Now, we don't have time, but You cannot believe how refreshing it is to go back and rehearse what these things are saying, okay, to help you live through a very difficult time. You have to bring up things from the Word of God that you know that quiet your heart and bring you back into perspective. Otherwise, you will blow up. When I was coming this morning with Becky, I was rehearsing Psalm 46 inside my mind, and that little phrase, there is a river with streams flowing out of it that makes glad the city of God, and he dwells there, and he is my God, and he doesn't change. That's what it says. Thus, he is a present hell. Thus, he is a refuge. Thus, he is a strength. Unless you can see that, you can't get the strength, and you can't submit to it. You blow up, and the tension. You're still within yourself and within your own strength. So that's the point, you've got to be on that, you've got to find that. It's got to be usually through what he speaks to you. So that's what you're finding here. You are at the City of God. Now what you should do is rehearse in your mind his description to us of the City of God. You've got to go to Revelation chapter 21, 22. And again, we're not going to go through that. But if you take 19, 20, 21, 22, you take all of that, that is a reference for us of the end, the Mount Zion, the city of God. okay, and its beauty, and its meaning, and its purpose, and all that's there. And we've studied those passages, and so if you go back and you take those notes and look at those things, it refreshes your mind as to your destination, and it takes you away from the problem at hand and its pain, and puts you into a perspective that this is not what life is. In fact, all it is is a looking at the fallen man and what state we have come to because of our own sin. And that God is moving us out of that to this as we go through it. to the heavenly Jerusalem, to the myriad of angels." Now, probably not a person in this room has seen an angel. There are some who have, maybe in this room, because I've certainly known people at Covenant who have actually seen angels. They don't talk about it, but when they do, they do tell you, I've seen an angel. So most of us have not had that experience, but there are myriads of them. When you go to seminary, you take nine weeks and you study angelology. You pull out every single verse of the Bible that has to do with angels, and you put them into categories and ideas of what they're doing, and all of a sudden you see that they're quite relevant, even though we had not been able to put them in place within our own minds as to what's going on. We will be a part of their lives, and they will be a part of our lives. They were created before us, but they're not the sons and the daughters of God. We are. And they will be a part of our lives because they will be the force of much of what we do, just as though God uses them as the force of what he does. They become his messengers. They become his arm, his hand that touches reality. And you and I will be over them. And a part of the crown that you will receive in terms of the rewards you will receive will be more likely how that will be related to you. The more you walk with God down here, the more you have the opportunity to basically have that relationship in terms of that working in the power of God. There are definite rewards. Will you be jealous? Well, they're not jealous of us. They ought to be. But they are not. There will be no jealousy. Even though I'm a door sweeper in that temple of God, I will rejoice. But, there is an opportunity to move forward with God and allow God to use your life every day, where a reward is given to that in the future. To the great assembly. Now, one of the things that I think that is most difficult for me to do down here is that The relationship that I have with other Christians is minimal. The experience that I have with other Christians is minimal. The unfolding of my own heart to them and their unfolding of their own heart to me is minimal down here. I do not believe it will be minimal at all when we are in the city of the assembly. In other words, we've talked about the song that God is building in each one of us, coming out of Isaiah chapter 11, where we will sing our song. And I believe that each one of us will have the opportunity at given times to where that song will be total and complete and whole. I mean, I follow Amanda, but I don't know what's going on in Amanda and all the depths of what God is doing, but God is creating a song in her. And sometime in the future, I will know every piece of the song. And she'll know about every piece of what God has given to me. The two of us, in terms of what God has done, becomes his glory. Now we've already looked at that when we looked at 1 Thessalonians 1, the last few verses, verse 10 and 11. When on the day that God reveals his glory, it says his glory is us, we become his glory. And what is that? It is what he's done in our lives, moment by moment, not just big pieces, but every piece, moment by moment. Every choice that I made in the last week about how to love my wife, okay, has to do with a glory. It's my glory, only in that God gave the strength to me to have that glory. So it becomes his glory, but I'm a piece of his glory. And the assembly of the church in heaven will experience all that. That is the beauty of this city. To the church of the firstborn, Now, this does not mean Jesus. It has to do with every single person who has become one of his family. And you're all firstborns. That's the way it's described. These are the firstborn ones. Those who have become a new child in his family. So it's everybody. We are the church of the firstborn. Now in Colossians, it means that he is the firstborn of the whole church. But in this case, it means we are the firstborn that make up the assembly. Okay. Why? Because we're enrolled in heaven, so that helps define who is the firstborn. So everybody in this room who is his is enrolled in heaven. We're in the book of life. So that's who is being described there. To the God and judge of all, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect. Now people, many people say that these are the Old Testament saints and the church enrolled firstborn are the New Testament saints. That could be. I'm not doubting that or whatever. But the issue to me is that every man has been made perfect. That is the thing that my heart cries out for more than anything else as I walk through this life. As you get farther and farther along, your body's deteriorating. You already want to be perfect because of that. Just shed this silly thing and go on. But what I really want to shed is that I still sin and I am still not perfect. I long to not have that blemish on me. I long that it be gone. And that's what you find him saying. Everywhere we go, everything is, when we see him, we will be like him. will be perfect and holy. That's the only reason that this is not a place of fear. Mount Zion is different. It's a place of fear. There is no fear here because you have been made perfect. And so you are no longer in fear in terms of what's going on. And who did this? You come to Jesus. You will know Jesus in a way that you've never known Jesus. That's your destiny. And he is the mediator of a new covenant. A new life, a new form. That is, of course, what causes all of us who are the firstborns and everybody that is a part of the enrolled church to be in this Mount Zion at peace and at joy and at fullness because there is the sprinkling of the blood. Now this sprinkling of the blood is probably the most dynamic thing that is talked about in the book of Hebrews. There is the sprinkling of blood of the Old Testament in Aaron, and now there is the sprinkling of the new covenant from Jesus himself, who is the high priest. And we have all participated in the sprinkling of the blood. It's a very beautiful way to say it. You have been sprinkled with the blood, and thus your whole. Now, verse 25, we won't get into this very far because we only have a few minutes. See to it, now this is where it's It starts to come back to us now as we walk. Because you have this vision, because you have this drive, because you understand all this, it has to change you as you live down here. It has to change you. They didn't want to hear God speak. They didn't want to hear it. It was too terrifying. But to you, the terror has been gone because of the blood. And now he speaks again, and you have the opportunity to hear. You have an opportunity to allow it to change your life into what you're supposed to be. So that's what you're going to hear next. And then in this passage, what it really describes from verse 25 to 29, is you choose to live for those things that are unshakable. Or you choose to live for those things that are shakable. See to it that you choose to live for those things that are unshakable. For thus God is a consuming fire. And I think this is interesting because it's the last phrase, that it's almost a revert back to the mountain, Mount Sinai, because it was fire that he descended in. Well, what's the fire that you and I have to deal with? Well, it's 1 Corinthians 3. It has to do with the Bema Seat. It has to do with the judgment of God upon us as Christians. And in this place, essentially, he will burn up all that you have done that is shakable. And everything that is not shakable will remain. Okay? So I believe that that's why that phrase is put in, because we will deal with the judge. Okay? But our judgment is a release out of love from the sprinkling of the blood into all that is perfect and all that is a dross that's been consumed. So there's no fear. There's no fear here. We've studied this at length in this class. So that's essentially what you're finding here. Yes, there is a fire and the holiness of God burns it up. And my dad used to say, I cannot wait for that burning because there's no fear here. It is the bringing forth of my perfection. And if it's only that tall or it's that tall, it doesn't matter. It matters in that you have a choice. to make it bigger and more glory to God. But there is no jealousy in this. There is no apprehension of this. There is nothing but love and kindness in it. Because you're still his son, he still loves you, even if you crawl in with just a little kernel. Okay, all right, we'll see you next. No, we'll see you next week, but we're having somebody who's going to, who's the guy that's going with you guys? Yeah, again, say his name. Right. We're going to allow him to teach to us what he's going to teach to the Indian church or people, pastors, okay, with Jeff and Sherry. And he's not done this all that much. So we're going to give him a practice run, okay, in terms of that next week. And then the week after that, I'll be back. I'll be here next week too, but I mean, I will be back teaching. Yes. OK, well, I'll be back three weeks. See you guys.