There’s an old saying which says “Home is where the heart is”, and it is actually founded in scripture, Matthew 6:21 says that wherever your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So, do you know where your treasure is today? The world offers us many choices, many roads for us to follow, many rainbows to chase after, but what will we find at the end of the rainbow? Will it be a pot of Gold, or a pot-hole for us to fall into?
The Bible tells us exactly where both our home and treasure can be found in no uncertain terms. This is what we will be studying today, and as we see the truth of scripture, our blessing will always be sure.
Let’s not waste any time and get right into the Word of God, starting with Exodus 19:12-13:
“And you shall set bounds to the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that you go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whoever touches the mount shall be surely put to death:
There shall not an hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live: when the trumpet sounds long, they shall come up to the mount.”
and also verses 16 through 19:
“And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightning, and a thick cloud on the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.
And 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, because the LORD descended on it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.
And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him by a voice.”
This is the Biblical description of Mount Sinai, the mountain where the Ten Commandments and the rest of the Moasic Law were given to Moses and to the people of Israel. It was a terribly awesome scene to be sure. All the people were terrified There was smoke, fire, earthquakes, loud trumpet sound… what I can only describe as a sensory explosion. Moses was afraid, the people were afraid, and everyone was afraid. The judgment of God is by all accounts a terrifying thing when God is giving a perfect law which no man can ever keep, after having boasted in their own pride that they could.
We see in verses 12 and 13 that Sinai was forbidden to be touched. Even touching the most base elements of the Law results in death. By the pounding of stones, or by being shot with an arrow, as the devil is said to use in Ephesians 6:16… arrows of judgment and condemnation; he who has ears let him hear.
Now turn to Hebrews 12:18-21:
“For you are not come to the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor to 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 any more:
(For they could not 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:)”
With the vivid and detailed description in these verses, there can be absolutely no mistake that the mountain being spoken of here is Mount Sinai, where the Law was given. And look at verse 18: it says For you have not come to that mountain! I thank God every day that I have not come to Mount Sinai – because I used to camp there in my old life before I knew Christ. I pitched my tent among the fire and brimstone in my previous days, and nearly choked to death as I breathed-in the ash… the tempests weren’t much fun either. And there are still many people trying to live there as I was, and many pastors trying to get people to move there as well… but we haven’t come to Mount Sinai, praise God.
So if not Mount Sinai, then where should we be? Let’s continue reading now with verses 22 through 24:
“But you are come to mount Sion, and to 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 sprinkling, that speaks better things that that of Abel.”
Verse 22 says But you are come to mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels. My friends, Heaven is not found at Mount Sinai, but at Mount Zion. Jesus did what the Law could not do. The Law could never save you or me, but Jesus Christ has. Notice also that an innumerable company of angels are at Mount Zion. Some people become all hung-up on the one-third that followed Satan and were cast down from heaven, and completely forget about the two-thirds that remain. There are so many that they are innumerable!
Verse 23 continues that also at Mount Zion is the general assembly and church of the firstborn which are written in heaven. If you’ve ever gone to a church but didn’t really fit in there, this verse tells you why… because while it may be a church, it is not necessarily a church of the firstborn. The firstborn is of course Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29), and any church that is truly His, will be firmly planted on Mount Zion, with abundant Grace. We also see from this verse that God, who is the Judge of all, calls us just and we are made perfect. And that word “perfect” used here (along with other places in the Bible) does not mean perfect as in never making mistakes, but it means perfect as in complete, fulfilled, lacking nothing. When we truly realize that Jesus has justified us, and God as the Judge has pronounced us a such, and Jesus is the one that completes us, many pitfalls and traps can be avoided by seeing that truth.
Next verse 24, and to Jesus the mediator of the New Covenant. You see, Jesus is there on Mount Zion. He is the mediator, not of the Old Covenant, but of the New Covenant. Also mentioned is the blood of sprinkling which speaks better things than that of Abel. This is a reference to Genesis chapter 4. And both here and in the account of Cain and Abel, we see something very interesting… blood has a voice. In Genesis 4:10 God says that the voice of Abel’s blood cries out from the ground. God hears the voice of Abel’s blood and responds immediately with judgment against Cain and a curse is placed upon him. What do you think Abel’s blood was crying out to God for? I can only assume that it was crying out for justice and judgment against the murderer. Now look again at verse 24 of our text in Hebrews 12, and you will see that the blood of Jesus speaks better things than that of Abel. On Mount Sinai when God spoke with the trumpet, what was spoken was so terribly frightening that the people begged for God to stop speaking lest they die. Now when the blood of Jesus speaks better things, they are words of comfort and saving grace and life.
When Abel’s blood cried out to God, judgment and cursing immediately came as a result, but when the blood of Jesus spoke, justification and blessing came just as swiftly. Just as Abel’s blood cried for vengeance, Jesus’ blood cried for mercy and grace, as the complete payment for sin to all who would accept, and that brings us to the next verses 25-29:
“See that you refuse not him that speaks. For if they escaped not who refused him that spoke on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaks from heaven:
Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he has promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.
And this word, Yet once more, signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
Why we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:
For our God is a consuming fire.”
Right in verse 25, we see that we should not refuse Him that speaks. Of-course this Him who speaks from heaven is God, and we know that He is speaking these better things that we have just read about, He is speaking about Christ, about the redemptive work of Jesus His Son. The Bible says here do not refuse Him! Do not turn away from Him! Because otherwise there is no escape! And all across the world including in churches there are many refusing the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in favor of some kind of man-made pseudo-righteousness based on works that can never save.
In verse 26 we see that God’s voice once shook the earth, and will once again do so, and not the earth only but also the heaven. This “heaven” is not the heaven where God dwells, but it is the heaven where evil forces are (Ephesians 6:12). So Good is shaking things, and the reason for it is given in the next verse 27. The intention here is to shaking everything so that the things that are made are removed. All things that are man-made are being shaken until they crumble to dust. Everything that is of self will fall. Everything that is made by man or of human-effort will be destroyed, and only those things which cannot be shaken will remain. And remember, the context of all of these verses which we are reading is Mount Sinai which represents the Law and works, vs Mount Zion representing Grace and Faith in Jesus Christ.
Furthermore, as we see in verse 28, we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, and this kingdom brings grace, and it is by this grace that we serve God acceptably, with reverence and Godly fear (which Jesus translated as worship in Luke 4:8). Today, how do we serve God acceptably with proper reverence and worship? Through Grace. There are so many people today who still do not understand that Grace is what enables people to truly serve God acceptably. It is Grace which allows people to receive the love of God freely into their lives and then out of that overflow of love that they receive from Him, they can respond in love both towards God and others around them as well.
On the other side of that, if you think that God is judging you, scrutinizing you or upset with you, that spirit of bondage and fear will drive you away from God and deeper into sin, because you can never truly love someone if you are afraid of them; and that fear will very quickly turn into hate.
It is the grace of God that truly changes lives. In Luke chapter 5, Simon (not yet Peter) receives a net-breaking load of fish from Jesus that is so abundant it sinks two boats! Jesus blessed Simon with this freely, and after Simon receives the unmerited, undeserved and unearned grace of God, he then declares in verse 8 “Lord, depart from me for I am a sinful man!”
Now who told Simon that he was a sinful man? The revelation of the awesome goodness of Jesus, spawned Simon’s repentance.
David writes in Psalms 103:5-6, that if the LORD would record iniquity, no-one could stand, but there is forgiveness with God, that He should be feared. Again it is Grace that produces right living, not the other way around that we tend to think.
I was talking with someone this week, and they shared with me that they have been really struggling with lust and can’t seem to get control of it. I said to them that instead of focusing on trying to control the sin, focus on Jesus instead and start to see how valuable that you are to Him. If you think you are worthless, you will treat yourself as such, but once you see how truly valuable you are to God, you will treat yourself with respect and not waste yourself with such things. If you truly see that you are in a nice three-piece suit that costs thousands of dollars, you will no longer want to play in the mud; and we know from Luke 5:22 that God the Father has placed the best robe of Jesus Christ on all of us.
The bottom line is this, Christ is both the beginning and the end. He is the start and finish of our righteousness, and He is the source of every blessing. Romans 8:32:
“He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?”
Jesus Christ is the greatest blessing, and with Him comes every other blessing because every other blessing is under Him. In Christ we really do get to have our cake and eat it, along with every other cake!
This does not come through the Law, but through Grace. We have not come to Mount Sinai, but Mount Zion. To the city of the living God, to the Kingdom of Heaven and an innumerable company of angels; and to Jesus the mediator of the New Covenant of Grace praise God. So come to Mount Zion and be blessed!