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Thousands of voices bombard us every day. Every person is now their own publishing house. The white noise of many appeals drowns out God’s word, making it so hard to listen to. But there is a voice, the voice, which we need to hear. Are you listening?
18 For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest 19 and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. 20 For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” 21 Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” 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, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
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.
This transcript has been automatically generated
Exodus 19:16-25.
On the morning of the 3rd day, there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the, in the camp trembled. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. 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. And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder.
The Lord came down on Mount Sinai to the top of the mountain, and And the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up. And the Lord said to Moses, go down and warn the people lest they break through to the Lord to look and many of them perish. Also let the priests who come near to the Lord consecrate themselves lest the Lord break out against them. And Moses said to the Lord, the people cannot come up to Mount Sinai for you yourself warned us, saying, set limits round the mountain and consecrate it. And the Lord said to him, go down and come up bringing Aaron with you, but do not let the priests and the people break through to come up to the Lord, lest he break out against them.
So Moses went down to the people and told them.
Our second reading is from Hebrews chapter 12, verses 18 to 25, and that’s on page 1213 of the church Bibles and in the service sheet.
So Hebrews 12, starting at verse 18.
For you have not come to what may be touched: a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given: if even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned. Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I tremble with fear. But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. 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.
Well, now the aim of our time this evening is that we listen attentively and with utmost care to God’s voice.
Not that we listen to God’s voice simply as one amongst a multiplicity of others in the crowd, nor that we distinguish God’s voice from the cacophony of other sounds, but rather that we listen as he warns us.
Now that is clear from verse 25 at the end of the reading there. Hebrews 12:25, 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.
I’ve been thinking this week of the various warning voices that we hear. My mother, don’t swim out of your depth. The Western morning news carries story after story of those who have been dragged out to sea from the very beaches where the G7 are currently meeting. The films that they showed you at school of people whose lungs have been subjected to 30 cigarettes a day, remember those?
Addicts who came to talk to you about the danger of drugs, explosive training, remember that? Be careful how you handle this.
Danger, sharks.
But verse 25 is quite clear, isn’t it? 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.
We could say that this whole letter is an appeal to listen to the voice that warns Chapter 1, verses 1 and 2, long ago at many times in many ways God spoke to our forefathers by the prophets. In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things.
Are you listening?
The point is made for us in our reading by way of contrast.
So, the author speaks of the voice that spoke from the mountain, verse 18, you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire.
And this is compared with what we now hear, verse 22, but you have come to Mount Zion.
And then there is the appeal, see that you do not refuse.
The point is made all the more strongly by the negative and the positive. You’ve not come. You have come. See that.
And the issue has to do with final judgement. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject the living God who warns us from heaven. That raises the stakes, doesn’t it?
We have seen that our author has depicted the Christian life as a race. Let us run with endurance the race set before us. At the finishing line is the Lord Jesus. How is it that Jesus keeps us running the race? What is the sustaining energy infusion, if you like, that will maintain our direction, the voice?
But given the contrast and the way the author writes it between what they once heard and what we now have, I’ve kind of toyed with the idea, at the same time of giving this as our aim, that we turn our backs on tangible religion, that which you touch, that we open our ears to invisible revelation.
Well, let’s get into the passage we had read for us. First, the terrifying experience of what they once touched, 18 through 21. And the point here is that the tangible, visual, experiential encounter that the Old Testament people of God had When God spoke to them at Mount Sinai, it was unutterably terrifying.
What may be touched refers to Mount Sinai, which is where the Old Testament people of God received God’s law. God saved his people for service. He rescued them in order to meet them at the mountain. He purchased them for a purpose. And at Mount Sinai, he spoke.
And there are 7 different aspects of that experience to which the author refers in 18 through 21. One writer suggests that it’s intended to be read with a rising crescendo as it was read out in church. Let’s try it.
You’ve not come to what may be touched.
A blazing fire and darkness gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose word made the hearers beg that no further message be spoken.
The blazing fire was— the whole mountain appeared to be engulfed. I remember seeing a whole boarding house burnt to the ground. It was terrifying.
The house opposite in the street, us in the street when we lived in southeast London, burned to the ground. It was fearful. I once set an entire live firing range alight single-handedly. It was scary.
The darkness was the sky turning black. Was it an eclipse? Was it smoke from the mountain? You know, go underground potholing, they always ask you to turn the lamp off, don’t they? It’s frightening enough when you turn the lamp off, you can’t see, literally you cannot see the hand in front of your face.
It’s scary.
The gloom was a complete pea-super. Were you in London on that apocalyptic day a couple of Septembers ago when the Saharan sands blew through and the whole place was eerily dark on a September afternoon at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. The whole place went dark. It was really spooky.
And then in the awesome semi-darkness, the eerie fearful gloom, with the whole mountain alight, the wind starts to blow, the tempest, hair lashing, debris crashing around, hot ash and cinders. And from the tempest, a trumpet blast, and the trumpet sound was always the sound of alarm in the Old Testament, and then a voice. And that experience was so terrifying that those who were there literally begged that they should not have to listen anymore to the voice of God. And even Moses himself, that humble, holy man of God, trembled with fear. It’s worth pausing at this point, isn’t it?
You sometimes come across Christians who want an immediate, everyday voice from God, a direct word to me, a special audible voice, if you like, tailor-made for the individual.
Well, those who had it were unutterably terrified.
For as the law from God came, so came a reality of guilt, and as a sense of guilt descended, so came the certainty of judgement. I will by no means acquit the guilty. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?
And so, it was utterly terrifying to meet God in his burning purity at the mountain.
There was a government minister called Jonathan Aitken. He was caught perjuring himself. He lied publicly and openly. He was taken to court. He was found guilty.
He was committed to prison. He, through that process, recommitted to a Christian faith, and I interviewed him in here about, well, it must have been about 15 years ago now. It’s quite an event. I mean, the place was packed to the gunnels. This was a former government minister.
He was one of Mrs. Thatcher’s government cabinet and also John Major’s. He talked about Judgement Day. His own judgement day. He said, every criminal thinks they’re going to get off. They always think the barrister will pull it off until the judge issues the sentence.
And then you go down in the Old Bailey, apparently there’s something they call the cage there. It’s literally iron bars around a basic floor. You get down there, he said, it’s utterly desperate. He said, they were, you know, muscle-bound, hard-nosed, tough-as-nails men, tattoos from head to toe. If you’ve got tattoos, it’s a great thing.
I’m not against that, but these guys, these guys, you know, you would not kind of cross them, as it were, in the street. And one of them was sitting over in the corner, tears streaming down his face. Another one was holding on to the bars of the cage and literally banging his head against it. The terror of judgement.
But our author doesn’t want us to hang around there for long.
He is interested that we listen.
And his point is that we’ve got a far superior voice to listen to than that experienced in that tangible encounter on the mountain.
And as I said, the argument is from the lesser to the greater. You can see it in verse 22, but you have come. And the 7 terrifying experiences that so traumatised the senses of the Old Testament people of God are matched by 7 profound privileges that New Testament believers have now experienced.
We are to turn our backs on tangible religion.
We are to open our ears to invisible revelation.
The awesome appeal. Of what we now hear? Well, these 7, the first 2 speak of God’s heavenly city. You have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. The 3rd speaks of an angelic celebratory party, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering.
The 4th refers to every believer down through the ages, every believer across the world today, to the assembly, that is the church, of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven. The 5th, to God as final Lord and Judge of all. You have come to God, the Judge of all.
The 6th is those who have already crossed the finishing line, if you like. They have run the race and they are now with him, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect. And the 7th refers to Jesus and his blood, the mediator of a new covenant, to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word. Than Abel.
That we’re talking about Mount Zion indicates that it’s a different place to the Old Testament Mount Sinai. Zion was the place where God set his love. It was where Israel gathered to worship. It was the centre of all God’s dealings with his people. In the Psalms and the prophets, it came to refer to the heavenly city in the new creation, and that the city is the city of the living God, confirms that we are talking about the heavenly city.
And do you notice the tense there? You have come to the heavenly city, the city of the living God.
That city is the heavenly Jerusalem. It reinforces for us that we are not dealing with something here on earth. This is not some kind of tangible enterprise of architecture and engineering.
This is not something that we are to build here, or search for here, or await here. We are not like the Arabs or the Jews looking for a holy site in modern-day Israel, or some American Christians awaiting a political event in Palestine. We are not seeking an earthly reality, trying to build the kingdom in our offices here and now.
This is the heavenly Jerusalem where God himself dwells. Notice the tense, you have come.
The innumerable angels in festal gathering, that’s so in tune with Hebrews. Remember, at the early part, there was great temptation that people would worship the angels. You’ve actually come to the angels.
And they are in festal gathering. That means they are in their party kit. All the spiritual powers and forces of heaven are celebrating. All restrictions have been lifted. This is not just 30 people gathered in a socially distanced way for an outside barbecue.
This is not face masks inside and singing outside, if you are lucky. The Old Testament speaks of a glorious, great heavenly wedding feast. I love weddings, such fun weddings, and the parties afterwards, I love them. But this is the heavenly party, it’s the party of all parties. Here are so many creatures in the heavenly sphere that the party rooms are overflowing, the angels are hanging out of the windows, They put out the ticker tape, cracked open the finest vintage, baked the best showstopper, and they are partying hard.
You have come to the angels in festal gathering. You are already there, the writer says, in effect, because you have come to Jesus. This is what you are part of, the writer says. Are you listening?
The assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven. We could have a whole evening talking about this. It speaks of every man, woman, and child who is chosen by God, who has responded to the call of Jesus down through the ages and across the globe today. Assembly is church, the church of the firstborn whose names are inscribed in heaven.
And every individual who has responded to Jesus as they come to Jesus. Whether you come to Jesus on your own in your one-room bedsit, or whether you come to Jesus in a Christian convention with 9,999 others, or whether you are currently gathered with him now in heaven, or whether you are meeting just with 2 or 3 others around a palm tree somewhere, or whether you are meeting with 300 others here in St Helen’s, or whether you are reading your Bible on your own somewhere, Whether you’re out at work, whether you’re in the office, whether you’re in the squash club, wherever you are, you are part of this glorious assembly of the heirs, the firstborn whose names are indelibly scored on the heavenly roll. That’s what you’re part of.
And you’ve come to the Judge of all the earth.
It’s appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgement, says the author of the Hebrews. If we go on sinning, there is only for us a fearful expectation of judgement, says the author of Hebrews, and a fury of fire that will consume all adversaries. But you have come to the Judge of all the earth. If you’ve come to Jesus, you now stand before the Judge. You’re cleansed.
You are right with God. You need fear no judgement. Your name is written in heaven.
And this next, the 6th, the spirits of the righteous made perfect, are those who have completed the race now. They have crossed the finishing line. They are safe with him in eternity. They are the great cloud of witnesses. There at the beginning of the chapter.
I can’t wait to meet them. All the cool guys are there. I mean, I’ve always wanted to meet Nimrod, the mighty hunter. I’ve always wanted to meet him. He’s there, you’ll find him in Genesis.
Noah will be there. Now, he was a seriously impressive guy. King David, King Solomon, the great heroes of the faith. Luke, the author of Luke’s Gospel and Acts of the Apostles. I’m really— he’s going to be one of the first people I go to try and find.
When I get there, I want to know, I want to know all sorts of things. But then all those others, you know, my dad, I can’t wait to meet him, my granddad, and best of all, Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, His sprinkled blood that speaks a better word. Than Abel.
Blood is only mentioned once in that verse. It doesn’t say the blood of Abel, it just says speaks a better word than Abel. I mean, of course, Abel’s blood spoke condemnation. It was shed, went down into the ground, and it was condemnation on Cain who killed him. So, Jesus’ blood speaks a better word.
But Abel trusted God and Abel died because he had faith, and his faith was in the God who one day would forgive his sins. And so, Jesus’ blood, this new covenant, why, it’s a far better word than the word of the old covenant that came with all the thunder and lightning and the terrifying audiovisual. This word, which actually you cannot see, it’s an invisible word, it’s just coming to you now, from heaven, from God, in and through the work and finished Word of the Lord Jesus. It’s coming at you. It’s invisible.
And it’s a better word than the word of the old covenant, because through it you are declared right with God. It’s what Abel longed for.
So, the eyes of the world are on a funny little village west of Clapham where the G7 are meeting. 7 middle-aged men and women representing the free world are gathered there, and everybody thinks, hey, this is a really important assembly. No, no, no, no, no. I mean, it’s kind of a pimple, isn’t it? But you’ve come You’ve come to the heavenly city.
God is there. You’ve come, you’ve come to judge of all the earth. You’ve come to the church of those whose names are enrolled in heaven. Whether you’re listening to this on your own somewhere, whether you’re on a running machine as you listen to this, with this plugged into your ears in your gym, you’ve come to the spirits of the righteous who’ve now been made perfect and have already crossed the finish line. That’s where your name is written.
That’s your home. That’s where you’re headed. See to it that you do not refuse him who is speaking, is presently now speaking.
For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, now you’ve heard of the possibility of the forgiveness of sins. You have been given this great privilege, you now refuse Him who is speaking? Somewhere along the race you think, oh well, I think it’s slightly more interesting over there. I think I will potter off down this pothole.
So we have a voice, and this voice is the voice of God that comes to us in the Word of God. Hebrews chapter 1, verses 1 and 2, demand that. In these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son whom he appointed. It’s a finished, final, sufficient word that we find here in the Scriptures. Here we have the word, and through this word, he is now speaking to you as you run the race together with everybody else, and he’s summoning you.
And the revelation of God in the person of Jesus, preserved in the Scriptures of the New Testament, fulfilling all the promises of the old. This is the Word that is coming to you. He is speaking. And here is the high-energy infusion that re-enlivens us for the race.
One or two observations. One, The urgent importance of listening. I mean, this is important, isn’t it, to listen? I mean, how you’re going to hear this Word, well, you need to think about that and work it out. How am I going to hear it?
Here on a Sunday, clearly. Here we have the Word taught. If you’re currently going to a church where they’re not teaching the Word, you need to bail out of that church, because that’s no good to you at all. This is how you are kept in the race, through listening to His Word. If If the assembly that you’re part of is not part of the assembly where His Word is so central, it’s not a true Christian assembly.
They may do all sorts of religious stuff, but if the Word isn’t at the centre of it, it might just as well be the golf club. You need to bail out and find a church where they teach the Word.
Small groups, it seems to me, if the Word of God is at the centre of them, Seems to me a great place to be hearing his word. Opening the word on your iPhone or whatever it is when you’re first thing in the morning and hearing the word, the urgent importance of listening.
That little word, do you see verse 25, see that you do not refuse? That word refuse could be translated beg off. Make excuses. You know, somebody sends you save the date and you are thinking— this refers to nobody, by the way, who has asked me to save a date because I have never had this thought, if anybody is saying it, just in case. But somebody says save the date and you think, oh dear, really?
I am so sorry, I can’t come. I am tidying my sock drawer that afternoon. Yeah, okay, so see to it that you do not beg off. I’m too busy. I’ve got other voices I want to listen to.
This voice is a bit too uncomfortable.
The urgent importance. The immediate threat, well, we’ve already begun to touch on it. Plugging this back into the whole letter, which when you get to the end of the letter, well, you really have to do. Plugging this back into the whole letter, why the cost of listening is incredibly high for the people who receive this. They’ve had their property confiscated, they’ve been imprisoned, they’ve been publicly exposed to ridicule.
And as a generation, who knows what we’re going to face? Or should I say, who knows what you’re going to face in the years to come? See to it.
As I’ve been thinking about this key issue of listening, I was thinking about the deafening distractions. One of the things I’ve started since last March, coming into work— you all decided not to come into work, stay at home, I decided I’m going to start coming into work. So every day through lockdown, I’ve cycled in, touched and talked to nobody, in case the kind of COVID police are out there, came into the office, I was the only person here, And I had my great, you know, Wi-Fi earphones on and sat here. And, you know, as people started to come back into the office, they’re such a distraction. So I’ve discovered white noise.
It’s great. There’s even such a thing— I’ve been listening to it this week— called celestial white noise. I mean, how do people know it, who wrote that, know what celestial— I’ve thought to myself, it’s a kind of different kind of white noise. It’s sort of slightly celestial sounding, but How we know what celestial sounding is, I don’t know. Maybe it’s not celestial sounding.
I always thought there wasn’t noise in space. Perhaps it’s actually not celestial white noise, but we needn’t go into that. The thing is, there are— it blocks out everything else. But there are so many things that block out the one voice that really matters. And may I say, As a generation, you guys are exposed to more of those than there have ever been.
You know, everybody today, every man, woman, and child is his or her own publishing house. And so you’re bombarded with noise. I mean, I see so many things I’d love to read every single day that look so interesting, and then other things which I’m really not in the least bit interested come flashing up on my screen. How they know they think I want to read about this sort of nonsense, I don’t know, but it’s another voice. It’s another voice.
Deafening distractions.
I think also there is a false listening. And I think, and you can chat about this over hot dogs, hot dogs for the last time, Thai chicken next week. You can chat about this over hot dogs and you can go right through to Thai chicken next week if you want. But I think this may be quite key to the letter. By contrasting the Old Testament voice of God with the new covenant, with the visible tangible, with the invisible and unseen, the author is picking up a big theme through the whole letter.
Faith is believing things that you don’t actually see. Faith is acting on an invisible word. And the Hebrew Christians were tempted to go back to the visible, tangible, impressive, the temple in Jerusalem, the whole kind of scheme of Old Testament religion that knew no forgiveness but brought only condemnation and that was unutterably terrifying. And it’s made me think, as I’ve been pondering this, you know, in what sense are you and I tempted to go into the kind of visible, tangible form whilst not listening to the invisible, powerful Word? Which is why I gave an alternative title this talk, turning our backs on tangible religion, here’s a suggestion for you.
What are we, 200 or 300 people here? The Bible tells me that inevitably some in a group like this will not run the race to the end.
Hebrews suggests to me that that those who are right in the thick of things in June 2021, when they decide to veer off from running the race, will not veer off into rank paganism, but will go into some form of religious expression that looks kind of impressive, But that is not actually listening to the invisible voice of the gospel call as we are summoned to the heavenly city.
I don’t know what it might be. It might be sort of such a real fascination with the theology of the early fathers that we embed ourselves in church history. Or 16th or 17th century kind of grids of religious expression, or Roman Catholic kind of tangible religion, temples and Vaticans and priests dressed up in holy kit. And it kind of looks, but it’s not the gospel.
And then, you know how you think about these things, you’re chewing these things over and you think, what might it be for us? You know, wouldn’t it be easy for somebody actually to be here, to be part of a small group, to be engaged in all our kind of tangible structures, to go away on a Lads in the House with the students, to be at every single Read, Mark, Learn weekend, part of the whole thing? But not actually to be listening and hearing the word.
So, I did some research on the ear, not my ear, but the ear. And if you have an ear that is sort of vaguely normal, I believe you have something called a tympanic membrane, which— ah, Tim’s a medic, he nodded. You’ve got one of those? 2. Yeah, that’s right, you’ve got 2 of them.
That’s very, very encouraging. And I thought to myself, that’s your eardrum, by the way, I believe, in normal terms. And I thought to myself, how is the tympanic membrane of my heart?
Am I listening? When was the last time God said something to William Taylor from His Word, his invisible word, which corrected me.
Where I thought, actually, oh, I know that’s uncomfortable, but I’m actually going to have to change. They encouraged me.
The eternal benefits of listening.
You’ve come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, to innumerable angels in festal gathering, to the assembly of the firstborn. Who are enrolled in heaven, to God the judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant. So we gave the series this title: Eyes Fixed, Lives Changed. It’s been rather fun because Mickey has never yet said it in the right order. So Mickey gives it as Eyes Changed Lives Fixed, Fixed Changed Eyes Lives.
It comes from being Australian, I think. I don’t know what it is, but anyway, he’s never yet— but then I thought to myself, have we really got the right title for the series? We came across, you know, we did it quite quickly. I wonder if this wouldn’t be better. Ears open, race run.
Ears open. Are you listening? It really matters. Let me lead us in prayer.
We think of Mary who sat at the feet of Jesus and listened to his teaching, and we pray that you would give each one of us, our Father in heaven, spiritual hearts that are soft and that listen to your word to us. We ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.
