New Salem Baptist Church

The Unshakable Kingdom

Dec. 15, 2024

Read Hebrews 12:18-29.

The author of Hebrews, the apostle Paul,[1] is like a modern author who includes photographs in his books. In verses 18-24 he gives us pictures. The scenery that he gives portrays the differences between the old and new covenants in vivid detail.

There are six items describing the circumstances of the old covenant and eight items  belonging to the new covenant. The first item:

18        For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind,^[2]

The mountain upon which Moses received the ten commandments was actually on fire!

¹⁸ Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly.^[3]

Do you like that kind of mountain? I think I would prefer a mountain with soft grass, trees, and flowing streams. A mountain on fire is terrifying. Paul seemed to be saying, “Hebrew brothers, do you want to return to the old covenant? Do you want to go to a mountain on fire?”

The second item is darkness. The smoke and the cloud made it dark even though there was a fire burning. Darkness is foreboding. You can’t see where you are going.

The third item is gloom. It’s not just that it was dark outside, but the darkness was felt – gloom.

Fourth is a whirlwind. A whirlwind is a tornado. It’s not something you want to be in or around!

Fifth is the sound of a trumpet. In the original account (Exodus 19:16), it is described as a “very loud trumpet blast” that terrified the people. A trumpet was the loudest instrument of ancient times. As far as loud, terrifying noises are concerned, in today’s terms it might be described as a screeching electric guitar with ten amplifiers waking you up!

The last item is a threatening voice. A voice that caused the people to beg that nothing more be spoken. The people even said, “Do not let God speak to us or we will die!” (Ex. 20:19) Even Moses trembled with fear!

Paul paints a picture of unpleasantness and fear. He contrasts this with a picture of the new covenant that is pleasant and positive. He lists eight items in four pairs.

²² But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering,^[4]

The first pair of items is Mt. Zion with the heavenly city, which is the Jerusalem that is not of this earth. This Mt. Zion is not the hill next to Jerusalem (hills were called mounts in the Middle East), but Zion is also used in Scripture as a reference to heaven itself:

¹  May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble!

May the name of the God of Jacob protect you!

²    May he send you help from the sanctuary

and give you support from Zion! ^[5]

 Then, four verses later, David writes:

⁶  Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed;

he will answer him from his holy heaven ^[6]

So we see that Zion is used in Psalm 20 as a parallel expression to heaven. Of course, the city of the living God is in heaven so these two go together.

The second pair of items in the new covenant is the angels with the assembly of the firstborn. The firstborn is the Lord Jesus (1:6) and those who belong to him assemble, gather, or meet together. This is a reference to the church, the names of whom are enrolled in heaven itself, but they meet together on earth. The tens of thousands of angels are together in a “festal gathering.” The one Greek word for “festal gathering”[7] is used for large public gatherings. It is used for the Olympic spectators in ancient literature. It’s as if the angels are watching us! We know the angels are watching us because Paul says so elsewhere (1 Cor. 11:10).

The third pair is God Himself and the “spirits of the righteous.” God is called, and he is, the Judge of all. At first blush, God as Judge may not seem so positive. But this is why Paul pairs it with the “spirits of the righteous made perfect.”

These “spirits of the righteous” are the Old Testament believers. They are the ones who were spirits at the time the book of Hebrews was written. The New Testament saints were still alive. Here is a question. Who made them perfect? Did they make themselves perfect? Of course not! God made them perfect.

Thus, even though God will judge, those who belong to him he perfects! God will do it! We can have confidence that he has not only perfected the Old Testament saints, but he will perfect us too. Indeed, he is doing that at the present time! Thank you, Lord!

The fourth and final pair are Jesus the Mediator and the sprinkled blood (vs. 24).

The sprinkled blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Abel’s blood cried out for justice and vengeance against his murderer (Gen. 4:10; by implication). But the blood of Jesus says, “Forgiveness is given to you!” (Hebrews 9:22; Eph. 1:7) What a difference! Oh! These words are wonderful! “Forgiveness is for you!” Those are the words of the sprinkled blood!

²⁵ See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. ^[8]

The Old Testament is filled with examples of what happened to the Israelites when they refused to heed the warnings of God, either when he spoke directly or through his prophets. They did not escape! God is still warning his people today. The book of Hebrews is a book of warnings. We have spoken about them all throughout this year.

It is one thing to learn from your own mistakes. It is easier to learn from someone else’s mistakes. This is why my second son, Coulter, was much more obedient than Kai. Kai was somewhat of a rascal. He wasn’t really very bad, but he did disobey from time to time and Coulter, a year and a half younger, saw Kai get spanked…more than once. So, I’m sure he thought, “I don’t want that!”

Paul is reminding us that the covenant people of old did not escape when they rejected God’s warnings. We can learn from their mistakes. We can avoid chastisement by listening to God’s warnings.

Now we come to the matter of the unshakable kingdom.

²⁶ At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” ^[9]

When God spoke at Mt. Sinai the earth literally shook. God is going to shake (and has already started) both the earth and the heavens. Paul is quoting the prophet Haggai. But, he says, “now he has promised…” He adds the word, now. This means that this promise has not yet been fulfilled.

Is the shaking that is coming a literal shaking or figurative? The answer is that it not either/or. It is both. It is certainly physical because the very next verse, verse 27, says that the things shaken are the “things that have been made.” Paul is writing about created things: the earth and even the heavens. (How the earth will be changed, we know. How the heavens will be changed is less clear.)

But this shaking is also figurative as can be seen from the context of chapter 12. God is shaking things up right now. He has been shaking you up, hasn’t he? You need to be shaken up, don’t you? (I need to be shaken up now and then!) This is what the last two messages have all been about, and all of chapter 12 until the end, that God is shaking us and we can avoid some shaking if we will walk straight!

Chapter 12 ends with the kingdom. The kingdom has been a theme of the book from the beginning. It’s just that Paul uses different terms.

• The term rest (or rested) is used 12 times.
• The word promises (or promised) is used 11 times.
• The word inheritance is used twice.

These all refer to the same thing and have to do with the kingdom that is yet to come.

In order to understand the kingdom and how it becomes unshakable, we should realize two aspects, or phases, of the kingdom: its reality and its manifestation.

The kingdom of the Lord Jesus was established when our Lord came the first time. This kingdom is real and it is here now. The king is Jesus. He is ruling from heaven but he is also ruling within us. He is powerfully influencing our consciences to heed his will. And, he is disciplining us when we live contrary to it as we saw the last two weeks.

Besides ruling, there are good, positive things about the present aspect of the kingdom:

¹⁷ For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.^[10]

These things are a reality right now. We have a practical righteousness. We have peace. Did we not see these two things when we considered the outcome of the Lord’s discipline? And we have joy. These are our present possessions in the church.

The church is the reality of the kingdom today. The rest of the world neither sees this nor knows this. In the minds of the unsaved, they think the church is just some boring place where people talk about God. Or, they may think it’s kind of a feel-good place if they have been exposed to more lively worship. But they do not see it as a place where Christ rules and where righteousness, peace, and joy abound.

But a day is coming when the whole world will see the fullness of the kingdom come. This will be the manifestation of the kingdom. The manifestation of the kingdom will be a time of reward and enjoyment for the overcomers. (See Matthew 16:27 and 25:21-23)

This truth, that when the kingdom comes in manifestation it will be as a reward and enjoyment for the overcomers, has already been seen in the earlier chapters (2:3; 4:1, 9, 11, 6:4-8; 10:26-31; 35-39) and only when understood as such do so many passages in the NT make sense (Mat. 5:20; 7:21-23; 16:24-27; 19:23-30; 24:46-51; 25:11-13, 21-23, 26-30; Luke 12:42-48; 19:17-19, 22-27; Romans 14:10-12; I Cor. 3:8, 13-15; 4:5; 9:24-27; 2 Cor. 5:10; 2 Tim 4:7-8; Rev. 2:7, 10-11, 17, 26-27; 3:4-5, 11-12, 20; 22:12).

²⁸ Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe,^[11]

The aspect of the kingdom referred to here is the manifestation of the kingdom, because this has been a theme throughout the whole book (using the terms rest, promises, and inheritance). We are in the reality of the kingdom now, but presently it is being shaken. When the shaking is done, that is, when the Lord comes back, then the kingdom will be unshakable because everything not in coordination with Christ’s ruling will have been removed.

At the time of the Lord’s return the physical earth will also be changed. After the millennium there will be a new heavens and a new earth and the change will be even greater.

Because these things will happen most assuredly, we should be grateful and worship God with fear and awe. We worship him corporately (the meetings of the church) and privately, in our homes or on our walks.

Why fear? Or reverence (as in ESV)? Because our God is a consuming fire (vs. 29)! When we read chapter ten, we saw that this idea of fire (10:27) means the severe judgment of God in this life when we sin willfully, without repentance.

It is a good thing to fear God when we sin. So, we see that chapter 12 ends the same way it began. We must discover and cast aside sin in our lives; otherwise, we subject ourselves to more shaking, more discipline.

[Application and Conclusion]

What must we do? We must do what the apostle has been encouraging us to do throughout the whole book but especially in chapter 12. We must cast everything aside that is holding us back or slowing us down.

We look forward to the unshakable kingdom that is coming. We long to be part of that kingdom. To that end we offer to God acceptable worship. Acceptable worship is worship effected and experienced by spirit and reality. In John 4:24 Jesus said:

God is spirit, and those who worship him can only worship in spirit and in reality.[12]

Most versions have “spirit and truth” in the last part of the verse. But the word in the original language translated as truth is the same word for reality.[13]

Our worship must issue from our human spirit, not our minds alone. Our whole inner person ought to be involved: our mind, our emotions, our will, and initiated by our spirit. Our worship must be real to us. Not by rote, not with wandering minds, but our deepest desire will be to magnify God.

We do this corporately, that is, in the meetings of the church. And, we do this privately.

Our bodies are even involved. Romans 12:1 says that acceptable worship to God is found by offering our bodies as a sacrifice. We deny bodily pleasures when it is necessary to do so.

In conclusion, we see that we are receiving an unshakable kingdom, one that will last forever. One filled with righteousness, peace, and joy. This kingdom is the longing of our hearts. Because we are receiving it, we ought to worship God acceptably and with a healthy fear.

Every day, worship him in spirit and reality. When you wake up each morning or soon thereafter. On Sundays come to the meetings and join in worship. Enjoy him now so you will be acclimated to enjoy him in the next age!