The Awesomeness of God  
                                  Heb. 12:18-29

Intro.:

1. It was not discovered until after he died. His family seems to have been in ignorance of the experience until the document was discovered.  The document was so precious to him that he had it sewed into his coat and when he changed coats un-sewed it and sewed it into the coat he was going to wear.
It was discovered after his death by a servant who noticed that the lining at one point was thicker than the rest. Having unsewn the place to see what it was he found a little piece of parchment covered with Pascal’s own hand writing.
The parchment reflected an experience of Pascal 8 years before he died.  It has come to be called the Memorial.

It begins: "In the year of Grace, l654, On Monday, 23rd of November…from about  half past ten in the evening until about half past twelve.   FIRE   God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and scholars.
Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy.  Peace….Forgetfulness of the world and of everything except God.  He is to be found only in the ways taught in the Gospels.   Righteous Father, the world hath  not known thee, but  I have known thee.” Joy, Joy, Joy, tears of joy….This is eternal life, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and the one whom thou has sent, Jesus Christ.

2. That night 363 years ago this  November  was the real conversion of  Blaise Pascal. The word Fire comes from the Bible  And the experience is one in which he encountered the  living God. Our passage of Scripture gives some indication
and background for that verse. Pascal found that his encounter with God brought light and understanding to his life, and that his life was not his own, but God’s.

3. Fire and light are common terms for talking about God. Our passage places several points in focus.

I. Our idea of God. 21.
 
l. The imagery of God as fire is probably most prominent in the case of Moses in the Old Testament. Moses was wandering around as a shepherd keeping his father-in-law’s sheep and God appeared to him, speaking thru a flaming bush that would
not be consumed. Moses was told to take off his shoes because the ground was sacred and holy. Moses was not allowed to come too near and he hid his face for he was afraid.

When Moses received the ten commandments at Sinai, the people were warned to not touch the mountain or the border of it. Whoever touched it was to be put to death. The presence of God was holy and sacred and was not to be profaned.
That experience was terrifying for Moses so that he trembled with fear.

2. Moving beyond that to the book of Hebrews, the author says that we are come to Mt. Zion, not a mountain, but the City of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to a judge who is God of all, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant.

3. This says something about our idea of God and how we should think. God is holy! We cannot permit ideas of God to mislead  us thinking that  God is  a grand buddy who does not have great goals for his people.    When we conceive of God as Holy and drawn near to Him, we are aware of the real difference between him and us. This is what conviction and awareness of sin are about.   Sin is a basic offense against God, a rejection of his nature. When I come to abhor my sin and see God as holy then there is hope and help for me.

4. This is what one finds in various testimonies. I was going from God. Sin was crouching around to pounce on me. The further I went the further from God I seemed to be. But then I sensed my utter lostness and helplessness, and
I cried out to God to save me. And he did.  The more I come to know God, the more   I realize my basic lostness  and sinfulness.

5. The significant point is that God has not changed, but he changes us. God has not ceased being holy. God has not ceased being a consuming fire, but he works in our lives to burn away the corruptness of sin so that he might purify us.  Some people south of Emporia had their house burn and nothing--absolutely--was left but about six inches  of ashes. But you have seen fires in which little is left the superstructure.   But in the case of God in our lives, he  purifies us...

II. Our worship. 18-21, 28

1. These verses also give us insight about the worship of God. Notice verse 28: "Let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe."

2. When do you worship? or do you? (I am not sure that we are really having  a morning worship.) I am not sure that we have been commissioned to establish morning or evening worship times. But let us assume for a moment that worship in a corporate group is what we are supposed to be doing. What does it mean
to worship with reverence and awe. Then it would mean among other things:

a. to enter quietly and pray as you are seated.
b. to enter without talking to your neighbors.
c. to prepare your heart before you come to church.
d. to sing with seriousness and gusto.
e. to make your offering a serious part of the service.
f. to listen to the reading of Scripture with concern.
g. to hear the sermon with readiness.
5. to encourage children to do the same.

3.  If morning worship is misnamed, then we are to worship somewhere, sometime, in the ways mentioned above.

4. Our morning worship is for instruction and fellowship. Worship is often related to an aesthetic experience in which the music is done well and tastefully, the sermon is intellectually satisfying and  challenging; but not too so,
and atmosphere is quiet and one has a feeling of solitude  in the crowd  and this may be topped off with a little bit of darkness for mystique. These are aesthetically good feelings, but this was not the pattern of the New Testament.

We may be  overdoing it in talking, but there is a real sense  of fellowship. We need fellowship. If we can't get it in S.S. we try somewhere else. But we also need the teaching of God's word. These two basic items enter into the early church's goals.

5. Our  Church here attempts to do some of these in various  degrees. Our worship needs to include both the public and private, and you will most likely achieve a sense of reverence end awe if you are seeking to worship alone.
6. But in either case, there is a place for attempting to improve on what we are doing.

III. Our future existence 22-2, 27-28.

l. v. 28. "Let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken..." Man  has come up with nature's energy in the atomic bomb and devastation is possible to put the earth out of commission. A hurricane unleashes the furry and strength
of a hundred or so atomic bombs. Only those things that solid can withstand it. In the earthquake in 1923 the Japanese learned some pointers about building. Flimsy structures wood and paper collapsed. Brick buildings tumbled crazily to
the ground. The solid buildings of structural steel were undamaged. But even steel can be twisted and knarled by force of the earth's movement.

In our tornado in June of this year, one can see the effects of wind on steel. Fence posts that were being put up for a new fence in the park were simply bent off by the wind. Strong steel was twisted and bent. There is not much that is not shakable. Our text says that God will shake it once more--the earth--"in order that what cannot be shaken may remain." Our future home is in God's hands.
 
2. We will have the new covenant fulfilled to us. This covenant means that we will be made perfect. Sin lost us God's glory, and now we are to share it again. God will continue to work in us, but leaving the world, we shall be perfected. Our greed, lust, anger, bitterness, sorrow, foolishness, stupidity, and all other problems of the spirit will be no more. This is involved in the phrase "to the spirits of just men made perfect."

3. V. 22 talks about a festal gathering. Heaven seems a long way off, but as I get a little closer to it, my thoughts turn in that direction. I have some dear relatives  there. My father and mother, and a brother. There is a brother I've never seen who  died before I was born. There are dear friends that I miss, and some very dear friends are going there soon, because sickness has numbered their days. There will be lots of people that I've read about, but never seen. I've always admired Moses and Abraham. Paul has been a favorite of mine. I've greatly appreciated the work of Augustine, Calvin, and Luther. I've drunk deeply at the fountain of Pascal and Kierkegaard. I'll get to see them and it will be a festal meeting because you too will be there. You'll get to meet some of the people I've told you about.

4. Our future existence has great excitement about it. Because we come to the living God who has made a new covenant
in Jesus.

Conclusion:
1. Have you given your heart to God? It does make a difference where you are. It makes a big difference on whose side you are. A Frenchman who had lived in England for a number of years desired to become naturalized. He accordingly
went to London, went thru the necessary ceremony, and paid the necessary fees. When he returned to his friends, one of them said, "well, I suppose you are an Englishman now, but I don't see any difference."
'Ah, but there is a difference ." he responded, "Yesterday Waterloo was a defeat; today it is a victory.

2. So it is with you. Today, rejecting Christ, you stand in ultimate defeat, but today also you can join his side and claim victory. Which will it be?