In this sermon, the preacher tells a story about a little boy who is being chased by a man from an insane asylum. The boy is terrified and running for his life, but eventually, the man catches up to him. However, instead of harming the boy, the man touches him and says, "You're it," before running back to the asylum. The preacher uses this story to illustrate the fears that people have in life and how they can be overcome. He also references the book of Hebrews in the Bible, where the writer talks about the fears that the New Testament Hebrew believers had and how they were meant to understand the unapproachability of God.

Harry Ironside the old Preacher of a couple generations before he used to tell a story of a young boy one day coming home from school. He Had a way that he was always supposed to come home. It was a longer way then He could have taken but because there was an insane asylum on the way home He was never to take you know to go near this insane asylum because of these Crazy people and the things that sometimes that they people feared that they might do And so he had always been instructed you go to school you know when you come home from school you take the long route around and you avoid that and Don't go take this shortcut through the field next to the insane asylum and he had been instructed to this But one day he was coming home and he was gonna be late and he thought he's gonna be in trouble for sure for being Late and so he decided he just had to risk it and take the shortcut And so he's decided there as he's coming through and he's taking the shortcut going by the insane asylum as he's going and they're kind Of looking over it is, you know checking things out But sure enough as he's going taking the shortcut He looks and there's this great big fella inside the same asylum Inside the fence the in yard there and he looks and he sees this kid and he's just immediately spots him And as he sees him, he just starts running for the fence And he kind starts climbing this fence and the little boy just so afraid he just takes off running as fast as He possibly can as he looks back over his shoulder and here the guys come over the fence and he's running after him and he can Just feel the foot be, you know They're pounding behind him there as he's getting closer and closer. He's just trying he just realizing the worst thing that could ever happen It's about to happen to him You know his parents had told him and he knew better and but he just had to do it and sure enough though He's the guys this Kenny closer and closer and closer and then as the little kid is running in fear and he looks back and he Trips falls down and then the next thing, you know, he turns over and here's this huge guy Reaching down to him. They're in just as he's just Screaming out in fear they get a guy reached out and he touches him and he says you're it and he turns around and he runs back and he climbs back over the fence and But so often, you know the we live in a world that's filled with fears You get all of these different fears that are around us and they were always so often concerned about and some are real and some are Not and yet there are some here that we all have to deal with and is the writer of Hebrews Here is talking, you know to these people about some of the fears that they have in this section Essentially, they had a lot of fears these New Testament Hebrew believers They knew that when they came to Christ and maybe that their family would reject them Their friends would reject them. They would find that there would be a lot of fears that came around them They were very real fears very much to the ones that have always been around fears of persecution fear of ridicule Rejection fear of the loss of their job their career fear of imprisonment and even yes the fear of death This is what was happening in the New Testament the early church and the persecutions and all of them saw Suffering and no matter who it was when they seemed to come to Christ There was a price to pay for every one of them It was very very real their fears seemed to be very were very well founded in so many ways If somebody was going to live fully for Jesus Christ in the early church, they were going to suffer There were going to be trials that were going to come and they were very real fears Well here the text wants to tell us something today And that is that there's even something though that is far more fearful than anything that any human relationship Any human fears any human persecution any human? ridicule or rejection can bring and that is simply that men ought to have a greater fear than all of that as Great as those fears can be essentially and that is the fear of God's judgment The fear of what it is to find yourself one day to be standing before God because ultimately there's two ways Is this section of Scripture tells us about that? Everyone is going to stand before God one of either of two ways one is is either they will stand before God Because they will have come to him as we'll look at through Essentially Mount Sinai they will have come through the law They will come through their own standards or whatever standards seem to be set up They will come on their own way and through their own efforts and their own abilities and Or else they will come through as we'll see Mount Zion and as it is typified for us here which symbolizes Christ's work what Jesus Christ did on the cross for us by his power by his love and Ultimately every human being is going to be judged by one mountain essentially the other By one manner in which they do come before God the Bible makes it clear. There's two sets of books that there are in heaven and one of which has the names of those who have rejected Christ and the other is the names of those essentially who have accepted him and Have come to him one is called the book of life there with the Jesus writes our name essentially down into when we come to him and the writer here of Hebrews wants to tell them what they really ought to fear isn't persecution and Anything that may happen, you know in any worldly or earthly sort of way as a consequence of Believing in Christ, but the judgment will happen if you don't come to Christ If you don't believe in him if you look there and all these other fears somehow or another allowed to keep you from God himself That all these other things. Well, we'll look at people. My friends don't like him or the I may lose my job It may have an effect here. It may have an effect there He is saying there is an eternal effect that ought to be that this thing shouldn't even be in the same category of thought or Revaluation when it comes to the real issues of life and so here the writer of Hebrews He gives us a very simple and wonderful illustration in a story essentially that telling them that unlike their Ancestors of the Old Covenant of the Old Testament times that day today He said you didn't come when you came to Christ. You didn't come to God through Mount Sinai He describes there as Mount Sinai was given to them as this volcano of fire and rumbling Tempest there where there's these blaring trumpets as you go that you through there and he says in verse 18 You have not come to the mountain that may be touched and burned with fire blackness and darkness in the Tempest and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words so that though heard it begged that the words should not be spoken To them anymore Here was something that when they came before Mount Sinai they came before this this picture is sometimes given to us by people like Cecil B DeMille and the Ten Commandments and things of Dark, you know mountain covered with clouds and lightning and thunder as it's typified here and explained to us you know here in this rumbling in this fearful thing the sound of trumpets echoing around and There was something that they were they were very afraid as they stood there even Moses himself It says there says I am exceedingly afraid in trembling Moses who on one hand who'd already spoken to God Yet God had called him and instructed him and he knew that he and essentially wasn't going to kill him there But there was something about this sight even for Moses in his closeness with God his familiarity with God that even Moses said I am I'm absolutely afraid myself. I'm exceedingly afraid Moses himself trembled wonder what in the world is all of this about and Here the yeah, I think one of the important things here in the text is that we would understand The fear what is it all about that God was wanting to put within them here in the Old Testament the fear of Mount Sinai and Essentially here what is happening is the Old Covenant the Old Testament It was founded of course at Mount Sinai essentially. That's where the law came from That's where all the structure of the Old Testament approach to God was instituted there at Mount Sinai Where God gave these things to Moses and there was something that God gave to him the law And the standards they were instituted there all the things thou shalt and thou shalt not And there were just laid out essentially there in the commandments of God, of course not just simply the Ten Commandments, but but the relational commandments the civil law the so many things of God just looking there at the at the world and in laying it out and saying you will not do these things they will not happen and it was there for reinforced by thunders and by lightning and by Something very very fearful God looked there and he watched his own children. He says that when you go out and thou shalt not kill, you know It wasn't just what it was like a little suggestion there. By the way, you know killing just I just never liked it. So Try to Minimize it, you know or something God wanted there to where there was something he looked there and he says you will not kill anybody You will not commit adultery. You won't go destroying one another you won't go backbiting one another You won't go coveting and lusting after you know, one another's lives and other things. These will destroy you. They'll destroy them They'll destroy everything that is the sanctity and the wonder and the magnificence of life You'll keep me before you you get away from me. You lose it all and here God is just shouting it in the most awesome and essentially in profound ways. He wanted to drive it home. There's no question about that But here the writer of Hebrews said you didn't come to this mountain when you came to Christ Here essentially what is happening back in the Old Testament God was preparing he was established in a covenant a covenant of their law and essentially there it is something where God even made it Very clear you can't even approach this The standards I'm laying out here or something. You can't keep them You're forbidden even to come near this mountain essentially there even if an animal comes near it there I mean these standards if even if a beast, you know Just comes upon this sanctity this holiness this picture of what it is He said it'll be stoned or you will shoot it with an arrow. It'll die They're the utter unapproachability Essentially of God of his holiness as with purity and some people that's you know We look at that and we're troubled sometimes by it, but let me tell you I think one of the most glorious things that that'll ever be about heaven is The fact that all of these things that God laid out they will be perfectly Fulfilled within every heart in every life when we're in heaven We won't even think of any of the things that would hurt God or hurt another There won't even be the temptation of it that we struggle with now There won't even be the covening or the lusting or the envy or the strife There won't even be a thought of another God. There won't even be you know, any of these things. They'll all be so fully Fulfilled within the heart in the life, but until where we we find ourselves with you know Having God do his greatest works within us there We can't approach it. We can't do it and here was something that essentially there's two mountains here There was the earthly mountain here of Mount Sinai and of the first covenant, but then it's contrasted here in verse 22 when it says but you have come to Mount Zion and to a city of the Living God a heavenly Jerusalem He says there's an earthly mountain and there's a heavenly mountain that you know as he gives this picture here to us he says one of them was an earthly covenant essentially one of it was there that a covenant of death a Covenant essentially almost of hopelessness to men that if you got near there was this terrible Penalty of death that was there to even think of setting your foot upon it. And the other though is Contrasted here with this heavenly, you know Mount Zion There in this new covenant There of grace and of love and it's something there that Paul tells us in the New Testament That the law all of this in the Old Testament all this old covenant It was merely the Bible says a schoolmaster to bring me to Christ When there's somebody would look there and look at God and you see that it's thundering and lightning this perfection this holiness this consuming fire about him so pure So magnificently pure that only the holiest could even go through it and not to have the dross of their entire being, you know destroyed But somebody there that how could you even dream of coming before a God? How could you even dream of living a life so pure? So perfect standards so met and it wasn't there to try to where God was trying to inspire people to try to do it Okay, if those are the standards I'm gonna go try to do them No, it was something there to reveal the utter hopelessness in trying to do it And it was something that red came true at the time that it happened It worked essentially there in the Old Testament back in Exodus 19 and 20 We haven't got time to go through the chapter so much but to give you a little synopsis of it There was something there when the law is being given and when the standards being laid out and God even instructs them there to prepare You know even for the law to come Back in there. They are told there that they're living even even just to hear of it Even just to know about it. They were to wash their clothes were told in verse 10 They were to abstain from all sexual relationships in verse 15 They were forbidden even to touch the edge of the mountain Don't you even dream of coming near under this mountain? God was so concerned with all of the restrictions and the regulations of the law that even sent Moses back down the mountain again To give them a final warning He said the standards are there and they're going to be real and they're going to be instituted and you've got to understand these These things for God was going to demonstrate to them as awesome holiness And there's something there that no sinner No human being could even dream of coming near to his holiness and to live and it was there something It was demonstrated when it does happen There with thunder and with lightning and with thick clouds and they allowed trumpet sounds and there was smoke and there was fire and there Was a violent trembling of the earth. They're told in verses 16 through 18, but the purpose of all of this Was that every human being there was the absolutely convinced of the absolute unapproachability of a human being to God And there was something that sinful man could never dream of coming near to God And it worked it did exactly essentially what it was that God wanted to do in one sense And that is the people who are scared Silly, I mean when they even look at Moses They're a great fearless leader who went before Pharaoh who could do anything who could lead him before the Red Sea who had it Who had fearlessness and eyes they realized Moses is afraid of this It says that they trembled and they stood at a distance and then they even pleaded with Moses He said let God not speak to us. Let's we die. They're saying what's going on. Are we over? Are we finished here just at the discussion of what the law is? Then Moses tried to tell him we don't have anything to be afraid of unless you disobey Or he told them he says don't be afraid for God has come in order to test you in order that you fear him And then you remain that he may remain with you that you may not sin Here he is saying God wants to put within you This fear of that you wouldn't want to be any other place then with him You wouldn't want to be on the opposite side of him. You wouldn't want to be living a life that is opposing to him You would find yourself never being casual essentially about God, but he would be somebody there that there would be this wonderful healthy fear Isn't that something that you and I we all? You know dream of his parents that you'd long for with your children that your parents would have this reverential healthy fear of you and With the obesity something there that that it wouldn't be so much that they are afraid of you But they would be afraid of disobeying you they'd be afraid they'd be fearful of the potential consequences of regarding you lightly You know when you're raising your children You want to be able to take them out in the front yard and let them play ball You know, they're playing catch in the front yard or whatever is yes, you can go out you can do that But they're inevitably as they're playing a ball can go out in the street and they may be not old enough to understand there Well, let's see if you run on the street cars are coming down They move it, you know it, you know 35 miles an hour and you're running out there a car weighs so much You don't weigh much car hits you. It's you're gonna give not the car You know and the kid can't understand all these things and you have they haven't got the ability to comprehend it You want a relationship with your child? You can just simply say don't go in the street And they fear you There is something that well, I don't understand why and I don't know anything about you What's wrong with getting a ball particularly if it goes out there, but if he says don't go in the street, I Don't want to go in the street. I Don't want to test and find even when somebody said I'll go get the ball You just need love us doesn't he want us to play ball? What's wrong with your dad? Is he against his own? He hates his that's it. He's a one no more fun No, but there would be something there would be this healthy Reverential fear that just says I don't understand it But I know that the way that he has created me is that somehow another all this is to the preservation of my life You know that if it could be something that the human soul, you know could have that instilled that any thought of anger hostility jealousy Any thought of hurting another person any thought of walking away from God any thought of taking my own heart my own mind My own inner thoughts unto myself and going doing whatever recklessly I want to with after all it's my life God didn't want me to have a good time God didn't want me to enjoy. Hey, she's not doing anything. I'm not doing anything You know or something. She's available. I'm available. Who knows. I don't see any streets in there any cars in the street We won't get hit but to realize he just simply says don't think that way and There's something in the heart that says I don't under my mind. It is wicked and deceitful above all things Who can understand it, but I fear God I fear what it'll do to me if I take my heart I take my life and I cross a line There that he has laid out The most wonderful thing that I think can ever happen to a human being is a wonderful healthy fear of God that he can put within them something there that they could have God bless you the I was hoping to get through to one person anyway, but the Just kidding. But here's Sinai it Represented for them a mountain there where God wanted us put in still, you know deeply within them Essentially to say that if you turn away from me if you backslide from my grace from my love He'll go back to a life of raw fear. You'll find yourself there under judgment You find yourself there Heading for death. That's what a writer of Hebrews is saying, you know in the Old Testament, you know Yeah, you live under law. You live under standard you you're gonna you're gonna die But wonderfully there when God in the Old Testament when he when he instigated the law And he instigated this mountain and he instigated the standard. He also instigated the Passover feast He also instigated a way there that when a man would realize but God I've done those things I Can think that way I can behave that way I say those things I fail You say you're holy and you're consuming fire and you these things are wrong and that they'll kill me and that I'm there worthy of death and the penalty of death for thinking and doing and behaving this way and God knowing all of this. He just didn't put up something to say here I want an excuse to kill you all because you all blew it No, he said this is who I am And this is what heaven is The glory is he in heaven. This will be your nature as well in God rather than saying Hey, my job in life is to adapt to your fallen nature God says my job in life is to reveal to you the high glory eternal nature that you will one day have It will just be you're not it'll be your first nature your primary nature You will live this way and love living this way you will find yourself and one of the things that make heaven heaven is the fact that the thought in the heart in the life in Relationships and the love the love for God the love for one another it is perfectly pure. There's no shadow of turning There's no wavering in it. Every resident of heaven has been conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. You have come up here and Here it was something where God though. He says but I have to show you here I have to show you who I am and you've got to determine do you want it and when they would realize it do And far from it Then he gave them the Passover feast He gave them the blood of the lamb that was shed for them When they would come there when they would look at Mount Sinai and they realize I can't I can't keep this I fail all the time and I come and I say God here an animal is sacrificed for me. His blood is shed for me I'm confessing I've failed. I'm confessing. I'm a sinner and oh how I have But in the process of it There was something that they God wanted them to know his infinite holiness And here was something, you know One of the things I think is so important that we know little love in this life and there seems to be little Preaching on it or teaching on it sometimes in the church, but God took the children of Israel out there into the wilderness Where there is basically absolutely nothing nothing at all Just to eat the mountain and he took them away from of course Egypt He took them away from all the distractions and all the attractions and all the busynesses Issues of life so much and they essentially for a time They had nothing essentially to focus on but God and in so doing they became very aware of their sinfulness They became very aware as they were just allowed to get away I think one of the things we are not very good at and we're afraid of doing is just getting away From all the things that attract us or distract us or keep us busy or keep us occupied I've got to go to this I've got to go to that but to take our our heart and just to be able to sit before God and say who are you? it's a fearful thing to even begin to do that I think in many ways because We feverishly, you know try to keep ourself occupied sometimes Because as soon as we're quiet like this will become tremendously aware of the deep need for God But we'll also become you know infinitely aware that there's got to become a repentance and the dependence upon God There's something's gonna happen to the heart to where we're gonna become so totally aware of our sinfulness and of his holiness We'll find that need. How do I get right? How do I get right when I could sit down and I could look at my life or I look at my thoughts or look At my marriage or look at my relationships in life Look at the way that I think of the way to business and then just sit there before an infinitely Holy God not everybody else Jesus told the Pharisees once he said, you know, you measure yourselves by one another You know, you're just live with one another and so everybody else is doing it and that's justification for you to do it Everybody else thinks that way so you think that way everybody else behaves that way and so you behave that way Well heaven isn't that way Heaven is how God lives And how we ought to be one is that we find ourselves sitting there. So God, how do you live? How do you love how do you care? What are your standards? And that's a fearful thing to do because when I do it now, I'm gonna immediately fall up very short very short And need help. This is what Hebrews here is about We God wants to tell them though that when you when you'll do that You know, there is a fearful thing. The Bible says to fall into the hands of a living God it that'll instill the real fear But I think God would love within us is that we would look there and say God I don't fear You know for my friends. I don't fear losing my even family. I don't fear losing my job I fear losing you And not being right with you St. Augustine once said Augustine ever pardon me anxiety has its has its use Stimulating us to seek with keener longing for that security and peace where that where Peace is complete and inassailable that there if there's an anxiety if there's a fear that happens it can have a great effect It can have a wonderful result if there's something there that stimulates me there to seek something God I must be right He says there's a healthy fear and a wonderful thing. And this is what he said, but here he says this isn't how you've come to God Because then he says after he gives him a little bit of a history of the Mount of Mount Zion and the law He wants to give them an understanding of grace For he tells him in verse 22 He says but you have come to Mount Zion the city of the Living God the heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of angels to the General Assembly and to the Church of the Firstborn who are registered in heaven and to God the judge of all and of the spirits of just men made perfect to Jesus the mediator of the new of a new covenant and to the blood of the Sprinkling that speaks of better things than that of Abel. Here is something he says But today the wonderful thing is is here. You've got either. I'm gonna come before God on my behavior my strength I'm as good as anybody else. I'm not afraid to die. I Look at all the other people. I'm good. I'm nice. I keep good standards. Oh sure I feel kind of we all fail But when somebody really goes back and says that the way you want to go to heaven Is that the way you really think let me introduce you to the God you're gonna meet if that's how you think you're going alone Let me tell you a beast would get shot on the spot He tells him and he's but he looks here and he says I don't think if I were you I'd want to go that way But he says rather than that come to Mount Zion Come there to the city city of the Living God as He looks at the heavenly Jerusalem one of them is this this earthly condemning, you know accusing way Of judgment that comes upon us We're cyan and it represents the law and he in standards apart me a sign I does but Zion symbolizes grace God's absolute love the law attacks and the law condemns, but the wonderful thing here is that grace Presents us it just offers to us forgiveness It offers to us their atonement It offers to a salvation when I come there and I come over here first about Zion and it says you're in trouble, buddy And I really listen and I really look and I hear the standards and I see the law I'm gonna step back as I can't don't talk to me anymore. I'm scared to death That's good Because now that ought to put the greatest anxiety that ever happened to the human soul where I go and sit and I say is There any resolution to this Are we all dead? On those terms. Yes But he says but there is another mountain a mountain of grace where instead of being accused and condemned you're literally presented with a way of forgiveness a Way of love a way of mercy. It's offered to us. He begs us to take it God himself there I mean Jesus Christ looked at us and he begs I'm come that you might have life and have it more abundantly He's he looks there and he I came to seek and to save the lost He says those that are healed have no a whole have no need of a physician But those that are sick do are you sick because if you do I'm the greatest doctor in the world I can cure the eternal sickness just like that and The wonderful thing that's when why Jesus Christ very simply came But he came there and now when we look not instead of coming before the law coming before judgment coming before condemnation We now come to Zion The Old Testament David when he got the Ark of the Covenant that had been all gone for a long time But he brought it to Jerusalem Later, you know now also synonymous within the word Zion there and you know Mount Zion there the city of the great God as he There had moved essentially from God moved his presence essentially from from Sinai to Zion and in Psalm 132 David writes he says for the Lord has chosen Zion. He is desired it for his habitation This is my resting place forever here while I dwell for I have desired it God says over here. You won't find me, but you will find death at Sinai, but if you come to Zion You find my habitation my resting place. This is where I desire This is where I want to dwell and here it's something Sinai or Mount Sinai is is the law and it's essentially closed to all Humans, you can't touch it and live but Zion is open to all It is something there were The wonderful thing here is that the writer of Hebrews is saying you have come to Mount Zion When you come there to Christ when you come to his blood shed for you when you come to his atonement and you come there and say God I See this law. I See the standard. I'm not it. I wish it was More than anything in the world. I want to be that I'd love to be that eternally But I am NOT and I cannot and that's when the Lord smiles and he says let me take you over here to Zion Let me take you to the city of the great King Let me take you to where the sacrifice of Jesus Christ was offered in the cross at Mount Calvary in Mount Zion Where Christ gave himself and that every sinner who stood over there and it was a fearful thing to come before him It was a hopeless thing. It was a disaster terrified the most fearful thing in the world He says now that ought to prepare my heart that when I come and I see Jesus He says I can take you to the top of that mountain by my blood into the very presence of the Living God And not only that here wonderfully he goes on He says you come to Mount Zion and the day and he said and the city of the Living God The heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of angels Here he says when you come to Christ you come to a city you come to a heavenly city. It's innumerably filled with angels There with it and he says in the general assembly of the church the firstborn of the Registered in heaven. He says you also come to be a part of the body of Christ the general assembly of all the redeemed You are now a part of their family instead of this law instead of you're hoping there I'm gonna keep the standard and being destroyed you can come here and be born into a city Whose builder and maker is God you can be born into a place to where it's filled with angels It's filled with the body of Christ This wonderful assembly there of the you know of the the firstborn who are registered in heaven the word firstborn means preeminent the honored All of those instead of God judging us over here at Mount Hermon in this mount Zion Sinai and destroying us. He takes us to Mount Zion and he honors us He makes us his own children and Jesus said I am NOT ashamed to be called your brother I'm your friend when you come to me through this mountain and He says and you come to the to God the judge of all into the spirits of just men made perfect You will now find yourself there with a whole there of the the body of Christ and all where all men are made perfect You imagine one day, you know with waking up in his likeness and Then waking up and looking there and seeing the rest of the body of Christ She knows the Bible says that you and I that we will know even as we are known the wonderful thing is is that right now we know a lot of trash about each other probably if you're married particularly and But the you know All sorts of things about one another and you've hurt one another and you failed one another and you've let each other down We're humans And we've got all these things and all this happened and we're constantly all right But I still love them and I bet yes that happened But I don't care and read but could you imagine one day knowing somebody only as we are known? By God Bible tells about you and me that when I come to Jesus Christ, he takes my sin He removes it as far as the east is from the west. He buries it in the depths of the sea He hides it behind his back and he says behold. I'll remember it no more When you come to Christ There is something where God now looks at you and you may come and say Lord would you forgive me? I you know what I did yesterday. I did it today What'd you do yesterday? Well, you know, no, I don't You must have confessed it because I don't know what you're talking about. No idea Here is something because I've forgotten it. I buried in the depths of the sea. I remember it no more We don't have that ability. We look at each other. So I'm trying to forget it. I Wish I could bury it. I Wish I could hide it but I do put it in the bottom, but there must be a Balloon on it because it floats back up and I remember you again, you know or something but not in heaven We will know as we're known. We'll be able to look at each other and see perfect spirits Perfect all that God ever designed and desired for your heart and your life and your nature and your character Designed and put into you and it's formed that you have never even seen it I have not seen and here is not heard and neither is entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for those who love him I Would get to you you will awake in this and you will be with all those around And then though he tells him he says however He goes on he says he gives them a stern warning as we close it here And he says see then that you do not refuse him who speaks for if they did not escape who refused him who spoke on earth Much more shall we not escape it if we turn away from him who speaks in heaven? he says you know these people in the Old Testament under the Old Covenant and When they had an earthly thing that was just given and they didn't get into the land. They couldn't keep it They died their carcasses died in the wilderness He says how much more if just with an earthly commandment when it was given they didn't do it How much more when heavenly? Voice speaks to us you think you can reject it and poopoo it and say who I'm not No big deal to me and you think it will be didn't be nothing He looks at them and he says when you will not escape if you turn away from he who speaks in heaven Whose voice then shook the earth, but now he is promising yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also heaven also in this Yet once more indicates the removal of those things that being shaken as of things that are made the thing things which cannot be Shaken maybe may remain here. He's looking. He says there is a time coming With absolutely everything that can be shaken will be shaken in heaven and earth, you know, it's funny There's it talks about in the last days. There's a lot of shaking will go on in the Bible and We're looking we're just watching me We watch Katrina come through and we watch Rita come through and we see the Northeast, you know flooded and we see Pakistan with thirty eight or nine forty thousand dead hundreds of thousands in or for over forty or fifty thousand I guess in in hospitals a couple of million displaced and the shaking hasn't even begun When we look there and realize I mean watching here, you know, how would it be if right now today? everything that could shake Away from you that is not you essentially the real you you just came down and all of a sudden you lost Everything that you think is you or other people think is you and determined this is them you lost your job You lost your house. You lost your car. You lost your jewelry. You lost your everything you lost All whatever there is you lost your looks you lost there You're all the things that are superficial everything that can be shaken everything that isn't the real you It's just the trimmings and the trappings of life that come and go They will all be shaken and we will there be standing naked before the eyes of him with whom we have to do and only the soul The human soul will be standing before God it'll all shake one day and Here when that shaking would go on is it something there where I have said God I fear Not being with you more than any other fear. I fear not pleasing you I fear not walking with you I fear having a nature and a behavior that just recklessly goes out and thinks and walks and talks and pride and in arrogance and in self-sufficiency shake it off of me and Bring me to your grace Bring me to your love forgive me and cleanse me And he says therefore since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken Let us have grace By which we may serve God acceptably with reverence in godly fear for our God is a consuming fire Bottom line end of the day after it's all over. God is still infinitely holy and And he will consume every Dross the wood hay and stubble of all of life. And if that's fundamentally what I made up of then I'll be totally gone But if something has happened in the process Where I find myself there Being I've come to Mount Zion that you know, and I find there is love and then he says then live in this grace Then stay in this grace Essentially says let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and with fear He says if we really have come to Mount Zion, which they had he's just exhorting them He's just running quick in their heart now wouldn't be wonderful of every one of us. Did this stop working? I think there may be this but wouldn't it be wonderful if every one of us? Wouldn't be wonderful if you me had such a reverential fear for God that all that was left to me today It's God. I want to serve you with my heart and with my love and with my lips and with my thoughts. I Want my life to be used for you and for your glory In every way and You know when that when ends realizing there because God The rest of it's gonna be burned up. Anyway The rest of it means nothing The rest of it can come or go but to live before you that's it May the Lord take his word. This is not kind of the funnest sermon today. Is it's I'm trying to Defend a nice way to end this but I'm at a loss But I suppose I'm not supposed to But something to me where maybe today you're looking there and if everything was shaken that could be shaken about you Shaken to the very core of your soul and you're absolutely naked of all everything else before God What where is your hope? What mountain do you come? Do you look there and say I'm okay? Or do you look over at God and say who am I kidding? Who am I kidding and Throw myself at the feet of Mount Zion where God Lord Jesus comes He says come unto me all you who labor and heavy laden. I'll give you rest for your soul My burden is light. My yoke is easy come In there in the realize there come let me wash you come. Let me cleanse you come Let me take you and refine you in my fire Cleanse you wash you and then let me put a healthy fear. This is God. I don't want to live in any other place but in an honor of you More and more and more and that's a healthy fear not so much, you know that we live afraid of God You know the God would never want that what parent wants their children to be afraid of them But to be afraid to be without him Afraid to be away from him Afraid to live and behave and think separately from him God. I don't want that. I've already done that. I've been there I've hurt me. It's hurt others. I'm tired of it. The world's tired. I Want you I? want you