Heb No.24 Perseverence 12v14-29

Now you might care to have your Bibles open at Hebrews in chapter 12. I can use my opening illustration because the lady concerned isn't here this evening. One of the things that attracted me to the young lady who eventually became my wife was when at college she always gave the impression that having commenced something, she would do it well and she would always finish.

And I was subsequently to discover that that characteristic seen not only in the realm of academics was general to her total personality. And if it's acceptable for a husband to speak well of his wife, then why not? So many seem to be going in for the opposite thing these days with marriage breakdowns. I could testify to the fact that one of the enduring qualities of my life's partner is her ability to complete a task and to stick to it until it's brought to absolute perfection.

And really I start with that somewhat homely and I trust acceptable comment, because it seems to me that it is the launching pad, at least it brings us to the launching pad of our study this evening. For if there's one word by way of summary that brings together the application of the teaching of the book of Hebrews, it is that word perseverance. Whoever the writer was, you settle for Paul if you please, I'll not argue with you.

Whoever the writer was, he was concerned to ensure that his readership developed the quality of persevering. Because you see, genuine faith in Jesus Christ has in built into it the ability to last right to the end of life. Genuine commitment to Christ is not an easy believism that's there one moment and gone the next.

It's not like the Jew in Palestine which is present just in the early hours of the morning, but you can't discover it later on because the heat of the sun has absorbed it. Genuine faith has bound into it perseverance. That's why Jesus said, he that endures to the end shall be saved.

No man having put his hand to the plow looks back, at least if he does, using that analogy, says our blessed meek Savior, he's not fit for the kingdom of heaven. Now it's the concept I tell you of perseverance which runs like a fast flowing river through the chapters of this epistle. You discover it in the first verse of the second chapter.

We must pay more careful attention to what we have received so that we do not drift away. Persevere. You find it again in the twelfth verse of the third chapter.

See to it brothers that none of you has a sinful unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God by implication. The word is persevere. You find it again in the first verse of the fourth chapter.

Therefore since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. Persevere. And then as you discovered towards the end of the tenth chapter and the thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth verses, the same theme is brought to our attention.

Do not throw away your confidence. It will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.

You see the point? The writer, he goes into doctrinal argument. He'll have an excursion into the Old Testament. He'll bring out wonderful doctrinal truths, and then he'll hammer home the practical application.

All this I'm telling you to stimulate you to persevere in the faith, to bring your faith in Christ through to perfection so that at the end you'll be received from this world into the kingdom of the redeemed in the next. Now you may recall if you've got a good memory that Thursday week ago when we were looking at the twelfth chapter, we were introduced to the concept of discipline. There was the idea of the athlete who was running a race, and then we got that second picture of a father disciplining his children.

And in one sense, discipline and perseverance, if not equivalent terms, are very, very near. The disciplined person perseveres. The one who perseveres is disciplined.

Now smuggled in at the end of those opening verses at the point of the twelfth and thirteenth, there's a picture of something that is a negative illustration of what our writer wishes to establish. Very often the Hebrews would teach by the way of negatives, and here's a classic example of the same. Here is what we shouldn't be.

Here is the arthritic Christian. Here is a man, the woman, who can't make progress because their arms, their joints, their knees are in some way diseased. They're enfeebled.

The writer says, don't be like that. Don't be handicapped. So discipline yourself in the Christian life that you're always spiritually fit.

If you don't do it literally in the realm of physical exercise, at least spiritually, go for a jog and ensure that in sticking to your day-by-day devotions, you're spiritually strong. So here is the connecting thought that runs through the twelfth chapter, the idea of discipline. And from the fourteenth verse onwards, it moves into the concept of perseverance.

Both major thoughts hinge together, and in between there is this little negative illustration of what we are not to be. Well, all that by way of introduction. When you come to the fourteenth and fifteenth verses of the passage, which demands our attention right now, you see three or four objectives put in front of us.

We're told in verse fourteen, to make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy. The concern of the disciplined person who's going to persevere in the Christian life is to be at peace with his fellow and to walk in a holy relationship with God so that God too is peaceful in his attitude towards his disciple. But not only are we asked to live peaceably with men and to walk consistently before God, but verse fifteen brings another objective to bear.

See to it, we're told, and the idea here in the original is again of the athlete who might flag in the race, see to it that no one misses the grace of God, that no one drops out, that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. The idea of the Christian living peaceably before men in a holy fashion before God is also joined to the exhortation for the Christian person not to let bitterness in any way creep into his personality. Actually, that verse is almost a quotation from the final sermon which Moses preached to the Hebrews, as is recorded in the book of Deuteronomy, reference to which is given later on in my notes.

But let's just stop for a moment and talk about the thought of bitterness before I break open the remaining verses which confront us for study this evening. Bitterness or sourness can be a very terrible thing within a Christian that affects not only himself but the whole community. That's the idea in the fifteenth verse you see, no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

Do you remember how when Achan disobeyed God and brought foreign plunder into the camp of the Hebrews, God's disfavor fell upon the whole community? The rest of the community were affected by Achan's sin, and it's the case with bitterness. If bitterness comes into your heart, not only does it twist and gnarl you, but you in turn can drag other people down, and you can't be a disciplined child of God. It's difficult for you to persevere if you get bitter about anything.

I get some very strange letters from time to time, and there's a man who sometimes writes to me from different parts of the world, and you'll be amazed, you'll be almost disbelieving in what I'm telling you now. When I recount this, that his letters are nearly obscene. Now this man spent years, nobody here knows him or else I wouldn't make reference, and there's no way in which you can trace his identity or again I wouldn't make reference, but he spent years in Central Africa as a missionary, an older man, old enough to be my father, and yet something happened.

Maybe when he was originally interviewed before he was sent out to the field, those who were responsible for interviewing him should have spotted a spiritual defect. If so, then I'm too, because I was one of the men involved. But something happened out in Africa that caused him to be embittered.

Relationship with other Christians, relationship on a mission station, and as a result he left with his wife. A little bit of bitterness in his heart which grew and grew and grew until I tell you when he writes to me his stuff is almost obscene. Why he writes to me, I suppose, well he feels I should have put to right certain things in East Africa that he was complaining about.

He had absolutely no justification as far as I'm concerned so to do. But you see, here is a man who got bitter and affected other people through his bitterness, and I tell you that if you're going to be disciplined as a Christian, if you're going to persevere, you've got to watch. Moses says this, watch that no root of bitterness starts up in your personality, because not only can it destroy you spiritually, but it can destroy others who have to deal with you.

We're all tempted sometimes to get a little bit bitter about certain things perhaps that aggrieve us, maybe rightly, maybe wrongly. We reject certain things that happen, and instead of getting the bitterness out of our soul, we allow it to fester. We allow it almost to ruin us.

I remember one person in my own experience who on one occasion I felt had treated me pretty badly. Now generally speaking, I can shrug this sort of thing off, but on this occasion I couldn't. It got into my spirit.

It started to affect my relationship with the Lord. I'm sure at least as far as I was concerned, even if it wasn't recognized by the congregation, it was affecting my Bible study, my ability to expound God's Word. Bitterness! Until such time as using a little bit of sense went for a walk, as often I do when I want to get alone with the Lord down by the seafront, walk mile after mile, getting the bitterness out of my heart and saying it doesn't really matter, even if I've been badly done by, even if on this occasion at any rate I hadn't harmed or caused offense for this individual, I'll love this person because of Jesus.

The bitterness went, and the relief that came to my soul was colossal. Well, why am I spending time before digging into the rest of my passage? Because it's very important, my friend, that we have these objectives in view. If we want to be disciplined children of God, if we want to persevere to the end, then we need to live peaceably amongst our fellows, have a holy attitude in our lifestyle so that God is not offended by us, God who is a holy God, and ensure that there's no bitterness in our hearts at all that's allowed to grow, because as Moses told the Old Testament Hebrews, bitterness is a plant that has prolific growth, and ere long, if it steals into the song, it becomes uncontrollable in the damage that it will do.

Well, we've a lot more to learn if we're going to persevere to the end, and our author has quite a bit to tell us. He's going to relate to us three things, two of which seem to be absolutely unconnected with what has gone before. He's going to speak to us about two brothers.

He's going to talk to us about two mountains, and then from the analogy of two mountains, he's going to speak to us about two occasions, when God has and when God will shake the world. The last two pieces of illustration, the last two chunks of teaching are related. The first thing seems to be unconnected, but I trust if God is helping me this evening by the power of His Spirit, I shall make clear what is the logical argument behind these verses.

So, you have in mind, it's still the thought of discipline, of encouraging us to persevere, that's basic to the argument of the writer. He's given us three or four objectives in the 14th and 15th verse, and now he's going to open up his teaching in front of us with these examples. And the first thing that we have to look at is the case of two brothers, the case of two brothers and references made to them in the 16th and the 17th verses.

Actually, I say two brothers, one is not named, but it's pretty obvious to those of us who know the Bible to whom the reference is. The one is Esau, and the other is Jacob. And we are told in the 16th verse, see that no one is sexually immoral or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son.

Afterwards, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears. You say, what on earth has that got to do with bitterness? What on earth has it got to do with discipline and perseverance? My friend, it's much to do with those three related topics.

Esau was one of the bitterest men in the Old Testament. The plant of bitterness was so in Esau's heart, it robbed him of spiritual blessing. You remember the story, not time and no need with biblically informed people to deal with it in any detail.

He renounces his birthright, comes in from hunting one day, feeling quite hungry. There's Jacob, his brother, cooking a nice broth, a nice bowl of soup, and in a very careless way. And it's difficult for us to understand the importance of what he was doing and the size of the sin involved.

In a careless way, he offers his birthright for a bowl of soup. The great privilege that God gave the firstborn in the Old Testament era, a blessing of the Lord, he tosses it to the ground and says, I prefer a bowl of soup. And he becomes a very, very bitter man indeed, bitter towards Jacob, bitter towards his parents.

And the bitterness, if you trace through the family story, little bits of information that we get in the book of Genesis will help you. If you trace through the family life of Esau, you will discover that the bitterness started to affect the wives that he married. He traded his birthright for a bowl of soup.

He lacked discipline. He lacked perseverance. And ultimately, he regretted what he had done.

He regretted what he had done. We're told that the day dawns and it's all encapsulated in one word, the seventeenth verse, afterwards. The day came when he regretted the fact that he had dealt so lightly with one of God's great blessings.

Afterwards, says our writer, you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. You see, the point is this for Esau. He never really acknowledged his sin.

He was concerned about his loss, but he wasn't concerned about his license. He just wanted the blessing back. There was no indication of conviction.

The tears that he shed were not because he had mishandled what God would have given him in the first instance, but simply because taken from him had been a specific benefit that he wanted. It wasn't a godly sorrow, says P.A.E. Hughes, not a godly sorrow which leads to repentance that Esau illustrated, but the worldly grief which produces loss. And you discover reference to that in 2 Corinthians chapter 7 and verse 10.

You see, Esau is a man who stands out as an example of a person who handled lightly what God had entrusted to him. In one sense, he was touched by the blessing of God, as some people are illuminated in their mind with the gospel. But he rejected what God had done.

He rejected the blessing as people also having been illuminated with the gospel nonetheless never move into a stage of regeneration. There's no perseverance with the Esau's of this world, and therefore there's no salvation. There's no discipline, and therefore there's no eternal reward.

Now we are told in this particular passage of Scripture that we ourselves are not to be like Esau. Put Esau on the running track of life. There's a marathon in front of him, and he's not going to persevere till the end.

He's going to be turned off. He's going to drop out, and he'll drop out for a bowl of soup. But don't criticize Esau too much, as though he's a unique example of someone mishandling the blessings of God.

There have been many, many men. Demas says, Paul has forsaken me, forsaken me, because there were other options, you see, that tripped Demas. Oh, that we ourselves might persevere.

Oh, that we might have a discipline, that our eyes may be fixed, not on the bowl of soup, so to speak, but recognizing what God has done for us in making us sons of the living God, clinging to our birthright as those who've been redeemed by the Lord Jesus. Discipline, perseverance. Does it shock you if I tell you that I turned the television set on Sunday? I couldn't help it.

Well, I suppose I could have, but I didn't want to help it, if you see the Irish in that logic. They had a program on at 10 o'clock. It was a religious program, or 10.30 was it, Hugh Latimer.

Latimer was one of the great preachers in English history, and they were giving some impression of Latimer preaching, and I wanted to hear it, even though I thought that the BBC or ITV, I forget which side of the box it was on, even though I thought they'd never be able to fully present Latimer in all his eloquence and power. I wanted to hear something of this man preaching by way of an actor casting the part. Latimer stood before kings in our country, and eventually he was done to death, refusing to swerve away from the path that God had told him to go down.

They burnt him to death at Oxford. He wouldn't sell his birthright not for the queen. He wouldn't even sell it during the Protestant reign of the king for him.

He wouldn't neutralize his message. He wouldn't in any way water it down. Latimer said when he preached to the king, what I've got to say will pinch you, using that quaint medieval expression for hurting someone when you preach.

But sire, the word that I bring is the word of God, and you're subject to that word. Latimer, you see, will persevere. He'll be disciplined right to the end, even though his body is as fuel for the fire.

And you know, there were those around the time when our writer was penning this epistle who too had offered their bodies to the flames. Some who you remember in the earlier chapter are described as those who were tortured and refused to be released. Some who faced jeers and flogging, while some others were chained and put in prison.

They were stoned, says the writer in the thirty-seventh verse of Hebrews 11. They were sawed in two. They were put to death by the sword.

They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destituted and persecuted and ill-treated. The world was not worthy of them. They were Esau's.

They were men who were disciplined and persevered. So we've got our first illustration, the two brothers, Jacob and Esau. But we don't stop there.

There's something else that our writer wants to tell us, and it's about two mountains, Mount Sinai and Mount Zion. If you look at the 18th verse, Sinai by implication is referred to, and in the 22nd verse, Mount Zion. Now, we'll have to be quick in dealing with the teaching here.

What is the contrast? Well, what does Mount Zion stand for, and what does Mount Sinai stand for? Well, let's take the latter first, because it comes first in the Bible. Sinai, of course, was a place where God gave the law to Moses. Now, if you read the historical occasion in the book of Exodus and related books in the Pentateuch, you will discover that that was a very fearful thing.

Sinai erupted almost like a volcanic mountain. It shook with the presence of God, and the people were scared stiff. The message of God from Sinai to the Hebrews was, Stand back.

Don't come up. Don't even let your animals touch this mountain. If they do, stone them.

Kill them. The law was given on Sinai, and when the law was given by God, everybody was afraid. Verse 21 says, The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, I am trembling with fear.

Now, why does our author make reference to Sinai and then to Mount Zion? What do you see? Those people who were going to read his letter were in danger of compromising on their faith. More than that, they were in danger of going back. They were Jewish people, and they ran the risk of having seen something of the glory of God at Calvary and, so to speak, at Mount Zion, of going back to Sinai.

Refusing to persevere as Christians, they were going back to Judaism. And the writer says, Do you know what you're really going back to? You're going back to that mount that shook with the presence of God, the holy God who gave a law that you have broken. When God spoke through the law, did all the Hebrews keep what he had said in the Ten Commandments? Not a bit.

They rejected his word. They broke his word. Thus reference made earlier to Hebrews whose bodies fell in the wilderness of Sinai, who never made the promised land.

Now says our writer, Do you really want to go back to that? If you fall out of the Christian race at this point, if you're sidetracked and go back to Sinai, you're going back to a law that you can't keep. Don't this is stupid. So from the first mountain, he takes us to the second.

Verse 22, to Mount Zion, and that speaks of gospel blessings. It speaks of the place where God is. It speaks ultimately of the heavenly Jerusalem which will come down on earth.

Now, who is going to be a member of that heavenly kingdom? Well, all those who have come to Mount Zion, all those who have come to the Lord Jesus Christ, all who have confessed him as Savior. When Jesus died, he died to fulfill the law. He died to pardon us from the sins that we had committed.

Now if you go to Sinai, there's no forgiveness. Sinai is like a lighthouse. It warns, but it can't save.

Calvary is not only a lighthouse, it has a lifeboat, and it goes to those who are in distress, and it causes them to be saved. So the blessings of Sinai are all bound up with the thought that the writer has of Mount Zion. Now you children of the Hebrews who have heard the gospel of Christ, who have come to Mount Zion, don't default, don't defect.

Remember the blessings that are yours because Jesus Christ is your Savior. And he goes on to wax eloquent about all that Jesus has achieved and all that's going to come into their experience because they belong to him. He speaks about this heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God.

He talks about thousands and thousands of angels in joyful assembly. He talks about the church of the firstborn. He talks about those who died in faith, the spirits, verse 23, the spirits of just men made perfect, of righteous men made perfect, who are already in heaven.

Now he says this is your destination if you remain true to Jesus Christ. But if you default and go back to Sinai, what is there? There's no hope for you whatsoever. And he also runs another little analogy.

Stay with the 24th verse because he's talking about Jesus. Jesus is the mediator of the new covenant. Jesus has brought the blessings of Zion within the reach of believers.

When Moses mediated the old covenant, verse 21 tells us that he trembled with fear. When Jesus mediates the new covenant, he makes it possible for us to have hope and peace. How does Jesus bring about the new covenant? Stay with verse 24.

Well, he does it by the shedding of his blood. Reference is made to the sprinkling of blood, the blood that speaks better words than the blood of Abel. Now you remember from what we've learned already from the Hebrew epistle that the whole idea of shedding of blood wasn't exactly foreign to the Old Testament, but the blood that was spilt then was the blood of the sacrificial animals, and we've already concluded that that can never take away sin.

But here is reference made to the blood of the Lord Jesus, and it's related not here to the blood of the Old Testament animals that were slain, but rather, surprisingly enough, to the blood of Abel. Well, where does Abel feature in all this? Well, what happened to Abel? You remember, don't you? Of course you do. Abel was the first man to be murdered, in one sense the first martyr, murdered by Cain.

Now when Abel died, his blood spoke. It spoke to God of some injustice. It spoke of the death of Abel at the hands of cruel Cain.

But the blood of the Lord Jesus, which has also been shed, if you please, by his brothers, it has a much more eloquent testimony to make than the blood of Abel. Why? What does the blood of Jesus speak of? Well, let's remember this to start with. When Abel died, he didn't die voluntary.

He was killed cruelly. When Jesus died, he died voluntarily, and he died for the benefit of his brothers. And the blood of the Lord Jesus, when it's spilt, it speaks to God.

Speaks of what? Speaks of the possibility, no, of the certainty of all who trust Jesus as Savior, of their salvation, of their entering into covenant blessings, which shall never pass away. Have you followed what our writer says? I hope so. Let me summarize it in case you haven't again.

God spoke twice to the world, at least. He spoke at Sinai, and the speech there was not terribly encouraging. He spoke of a law that had to be kept, but alas, humanity, even the Jewish community, broke the law.

When they broke God's law, verse 25 says, they had to pay the penalty. Now God speaks again. He speaks at Calvary.

He speaks, if you like, through Mount Zion. He speaks of mercy as well as judgment. He speaks of grace as well as holiness.

If you reject the gospel that God speaks at Zion, then there's no hope, because God will condemn the unbeliever. Verse 25, see to it that you do not refuse Him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused Him who warned them on earth, Sinai, how much less will we if we turn away from Him who warns us from heaven.

God is still speaking to this world from heaven, from Zion, the new Jerusalem. He speaks through His Son. He speaks through the gospel.

Reject what He has to say, and you're in trouble. That's why the writer to the Hebrews makes the comment earlier on, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? You see, implanted in his argument is, brothers, persevere. Don't go back to Judaism.

Stay with Jesus. Or in modern times, don't default from your professed faith in Christ. Don't sell your birthright for a bowl of soup, whatever that soup is.

Don't become embittered. Don't become lazy in your spiritual discipline. Persevere, my friend.

Listen to the voice that speaks from Zion itself, and know the blessings now, and ultimately enter into even greater ones, because you trust Christ as Savior. The illustration of two brothers, the illustration of two mountains, finally, and quickly at that, the illustration of two shakings. You say, what an extraordinary thought.

Well, yes it is, but it's not mine. It belongs to the Bible, and therefore it must have importance. Look from the twenty-sixth verse, will you? At that time His voice shook the earth, but now He has promised, once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens.

The words, once more, indicate the removing of what can be shaken, that is created things, so that what cannot be shaken may remain. You say, well, I was confused to start with. I'm even more confused now.

What does it mean? Well, let's go back to these mountains, shall we? At least, let's go back to the first one. God comes down at Sinai. He shakes the mountain.

It vibrates, and He gives His Word to Moses, and Moses in turn takes it to the Hebrews who are frightened there down in the plain at the bottom of the mountain. God shook the world, so to speak, as He gave His law. Ah, but the Bible says in the book of Haggai, of which that verse in the twenty-sixth contains a quotation, Haggai 2 and verse 6, the time is coming when God will shake the earth again.

What is referred to? My friend, what is referred to is nothing else but the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to a great preacher from the New Testament church, or rather from the early church by the name of Gregory. This shaking is none other than the second coming of Christ when the universe will be transformed and changed to a condition of stability which cannot be shaken.

Oh, how often I've preached in recent days about what is going to happen at the end of human history when God steps in time and space once more, when His Son is revealed. There will be events take place not only on this earth, but in this universe which will be terrible. Never equaled apart from the beginning of time when God spoke the creative word and the universe came into existence.

That very God is going to speak again. He's going to speak visibly. We shall see Him.

We shall see Him in the person of His Son. Our God is going to regenerate this earth. He is going to regenerate the universe.

The Holy Scripture stands up and gives testimony to this fact. The sin of Adam which brought pollution into this earth was dealt with at Calvary, but the effects of that sin are still with us. Mother earth still groans, says the apostle Paul as he writes to the Romans in chapter 8. There's a bondage that's obvious in creation.

There's something wrong with this world, this natural, material world, as well as something wrong within the descendants of Adam. But God's not going to leave it like that. If He were to leave it like this, then the perfect work of Calvary and the achievements of Christ would be incomplete.

When the Christ returns, cataclysmic events will happen. Catastrophic in one sense. There has to be the rejuvenation of this world, the rejuvenation of these heavens.

When God spoke in the beginning, the worlds came into existence. When the thunder of God's voice went into the universe after He had created the planets and was directed to mother earth, certain things happened there as the great stages of creation were enacted. Now that same shaking of the universe is to be repeated.

Once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens and everything that is vile, everything that is corrupt, everything that does not glorify God shall be dismantled and eradicated. The time is coming when the universe and the universes that we are told that are at the back of this universe shall know the presence and the glory of God. I cannot tell you what God purposes to do in the eternities that remain, but it is perfectly obvious to any reasonably intelligent person that there are tremendous purposes that God has in store for our universe which have not yet been put into realization.

Why is there the universe? Why are there thousands and thousands of universes? Are we to say that mother earth, just like a grain on the seashore compared with all the planets and the stars and the universes that there are, are we to say that God's purposes are restricted only to that little speck? Not a bit. There is something else. Scripture takes us onto a high hill, and we can see only vaguely, only mysteriously, something of what God has in store.

There's a new world to dawn. There's a new dimension that's coming. God is going to shake this world and bring it about.

And the marvelous thing is this, that the basis of all that God has in the future will swing on the fulcrum, on the pivot, of what Christ did at the cross. Redemption has cosmic significance. And now I could spend a great deal more time on this subject.

It just thrills my soul. But time has gone. But the point surely should remain in your mind.

If all this is true, if God has a kingdom to bring in that cannot be shaken, if God is going to do something remarkable that I have not seen yet, and we are involved as believers in the eternal purposes of God, then to have tasted a little of this and to go back on our profession of faith is a nonsense. To sell our birthright for a bowl of soup is crass stupidity. To move from Calvary where there's salvation to Sinai where there's judgment is absurd.

So you see the point. In a highly charged passage of doctrinal teaching, the writer of the Hebrews appeals for discipline and for perseverance. He takes us to two brothers.

He takes us to two mountains. He takes us to two shakings. And he said, don't be stupid.

In effect, give thanks to the Lord for what he has done for you. Verse 28, worship God acceptably with reverence and with awe, and know that this God who has such energy and such dynamic and such potential that he is as a consuming fire, know that he has spoken to you in mercy through Jesus Christ. Bless him for his salvation.

Stay the course of your Christian pilgrimage until that moment when he takes you to be with him, or that even greater moment when he speaks a recreative world to this universe, and heaven touches earth, and the universe is rejuvenated. Amen.