General Articles

Hebrews Lesson 48: Serve God with Reverence :: By Sean Gooding

Published on: by RR10

Chapter 12: 18-29

“For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, 19 and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. 20 (For they could not endure what was commanded: ‘And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.’ 21 And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, ‘I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.’)

22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, 23 to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, 24 to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.

25 See 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 if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, 26 whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, ‘Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.’ 27 Now this, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. 28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. 29 For our God is a consuming fire.”

I hope that you are not ‘falling short of God’s grace’ as a saved person. I pray that you are living out your new life daily in full dependence on the leadership, kindness, mercy, provision, and blessing of God. If there is anything else running your life, you are cheating yourself. It is hard to live by grace; it means we may not fit in, even with other saved persons. Paul was often at odds with other believers, including Peter. See Galatians 2:11-14 (NIV):

“When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray. When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, ‘You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?'”

  • Without Grace, God is terrifying, verses 18-21

God, the Almighty, all-Powerful, all-Knowing God; the God who can palm the oceans of the planet (Isaiah 40:12); the God who laid the foundations of the earth (Job 38:4); the God who could kill the entire Egyptian army in the Red Sea; the God who destroyed 185,000 soldiers in one night (2 Kings 19:35) and on we can go. The God who will one day banish billions to the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:11-15); this God is scary but for grace. Right here in our passage, God is called a ‘consuming fire’; terrifying.

The Jews in the wilderness were terrified of God. They came to the mountain, they heard God, saw the smoke and there shook. They begged Moses to go there for them and hear God, but please don’t make them go. Jesus showed us a bit of His power the very night He was arrested; John 18:4-6:

“Jesus, knowing all that was coming upon Him, stepped forward and asked them, ‘Whom are you seeking?’ ‘Jesus of Nazareth,’ they answered. Jesus said, ‘I am He.’ And Judas His betrayer was standing there with them. When Jesus said, ‘I am He,’ they drew back and fell to the ground…”

These men should have thought twice about arresting Jesus. How many times had they been knocked over by mere words? But no, the prophecy had to be fulfilled, so they took Jesus. God shows us His wondrous grace. We deserve, I deserve, His wrath. I deserve His fire and brimstone; I deserve His death angel. But in Jesus, by Jesus, and through Jesus, I get grace. God loves me, feeds me, cares for me, protects me, uses me, and one day when I die, He will take me home to Heaven. This should awe us; it awes me and helps me to understand how blessed I am.

  • Serve God with Reverence, verse 28

We will come back in the next lesson and tackle the other verses we missed. But we are encouraged by the writer to serve God with reverence. Because we know how powerful He is and because we know the depth of our sins, and because we know what it cost God to redeem us, we should serve Him reverently. We should serve not out of duty but love and genuine admiration for His love and grace.

He should be the First in our lives; the First One we call, the First One we seek, the First One we love, the First One we serve, and all else should find its place behind Him. While we appreciate and celebrate what is, we should never forget what could have been. But for the grace of God go I. We are not special; He is. We are nothing; He is everything. We are less; He is more. He is strong; we are weak. We breathe because He allows; I have a good wife because He allows. I have a great job because He is gracious, and I am in the ministry because He is patient and kind, and He allows mere men to share His eternal message.

We need to be careful how we ‘carry the name of God, the 4th Commandment. This is re-iterated in Luke 5:16, how does your light shine? Are people able to see that God is real, present, and powerful by the way that you live reverently for Him, to Him, and by Him? Reverence is defined as a ‘deep respect for someone or something.’ Would you say that you live in a deeply respectful way toward our Lord? Once we honestly answer that question, a lot of us will change the way we live as Christians.

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

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Where is Dispensationalism Going? Part 3 :: By Paul J. Scharf

Published on: by RR10

Let’s just cut to the chase: Since dispensationalism grew out of a renewed commitment to the rigorous study of the Bible, could it be that dispensationalism’s decline is related to the notable neglect of Scripture?

At first blush, that might sound like an arrogant claim. But note, please, what I am not saying. I’m not in the least stating that the proponents of other systems of evangelical Christian theology—particularly forms of covenant theology—do not hold as faithfully to verbal plenary inspiration as do dispensationalists. I am not implying that they do not read their Bibles—perhaps more zealously than we do. I am not questioning how distinguished their brightest scholars are, or disputing the fact that their list of theology volumes produced by major publishers is growing much more rapidly than ours.

But theology is not a matter for polling or public opinion. Like honest science, it is not built upon consensus but by those who break through the consensus and discover the significance of previously overlooked factors. We do not arrive at orthodox conclusions by counting doctorates or the sales of commentaries.

So, let’s confess that we will not rescue dispensationalism by any fleshly means—and we won’t even rescue dispensationalism by talking more about it.

No, what we need to do is—wait for it—what we’ve always done. If dispensationalism grew out of a renewed commitment to meticulous Bible study, then it can only be revived through that very same means.

Once again, I can hear the objections. I wonder, however, if they are valid.

I ponder, for instance, whether non-dispensationalists are mining every word out of the Major and Minor Prophets—not simply for their historical content or devotional quality, but with the realization that the prophets saw mountaintops pointing toward the final return of Christ. Many of these details remain yet to be fulfilled, as they speak of divine interventions at the end of history (see Dan. 12:9). Are covenant theologians dealing with the intricacies of such passages?

Are they reading the Old Testament as the foundation for the New Testament—rather than reversing the process and reading the New Testament back into the Old Testament? Are they reading the Bible in the progressive order in which it was written?

Are they listening to the precise words that the prophets and apostles spoke—attempting to understand them as their very first readers would have, according to their grammar, in their historical context? Or is their interpretation tainted by their theology? Do they remember that the interpretation of any one word, verse, or chapter must be able to bear the weight of the whole of Scripture?

Do they understand prophetic sections literally in context—not dismissing massive passages, or even whole books, as being close to irrelevant by artificially relegating them to a genre of literature like apocalyptic? Are they seeking to find the literal meaning signified by the signs, and symbolized by the symbols, within that context (see Dan. 8:20-21)? Do they take that as the basis to interpret related or parallel Scriptures?

As the church moved into the 19th and early 20th centuries, God’s people across many denominations, basking in the light from the Reformation, embraced an intensified commitment to the Scriptures—in newly accessible formats—with the enhanced freedom to study it. These principles began to govern their investigation. Their fascination was with discovering hidden and disregarded truth—not in aligning with theological consensus. Out of such a culture, dispensationalism was born.

I say it once again as a clarion call—especially because many need their confidence restored: If dispensationalism grew out of a renewed commitment to the rigorous study of the Bible, then it can only be revived through that same means. It is my contention that when the details of the whole Bible are studied and interpreted literally, in context, the systematization of one’s results will produce dispensational theology.

In its noblest forms, dispensationalism offers a method of thinking and a course of living. It deals with the whole Bible in-depth, and it challenges us to study that Word at length.

Just as the task of reforming the church will never be complete on this Earth, so neither will the development of dispensationalism ever be concluded. Its mission calls us forward, however; the exercise supplies its own reward.

So, to paraphrase my mentor, Dr. John Whitcomb, let’s do the impossible. Let’s open our Bibles and begin to study, “Precept upon precept, precept upon precept, Line upon line, line upon line” (Isa. 28:13). And, as he would also remind us, take everything you learn and train someone else (see 2 Tim. 2:2).

This will be the primary means of reviving dispensationalism in the closing days of the church age.

***

Paul J. Scharf (M.A., M.Div., Faith Baptist Theological Seminary) is a church ministries representative for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, based in Columbus, WI, and serving in the Midwest. For more information on his ministry, visit sermonaudio.com/pscharf or foi.org/scharf, or email pscharf@foi.org.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version.