Today I am going to talk about being thankful about something specific and how that specific thing should cause us to be in a state of somber worship. So if you have your Bibles, please turn with me to Hebrews 12, and we’ll look at verses 28 and 29.
As you’re turning there, I referenced something a few weeks ago when I did the sermon titled, “Don’t Let the Turkeys Get You Down,” and I’d like to read it to you again.
This is taken from The Possibility of Prayer by John Starke:
When the Bible seeks to explain God’s holiness, it says that God is a “consuming fire” (Exodus 24:17; Deuteronomy 4:24; Hebrews 12:29)—a dangerous and terrible presence. The presence of not just a fire that warms our hands and charms our campsites, but a consuming fire…. When Isaiah encounters this God, he cries out, “Woe is me! For I am lost;” (Isaiah 6:5)…Something is coming apart in Isaiah in the presence of God. Yet, at the same time, Isaiah and the seraphim don’t flee the terrible presence. The danger is real, but obviously so is the splendor. So terrifying and attractive, so immense and wonderful is God.
So today, we are going to talk about this consuming fire, this wonderful presence of God, and what it means to be thankful to this God who is both terrible and wonderful at the same time, and how we should worship him
Scripture:
28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, 29 for our “God is a consuming fire.”
And you may have that last few words in quotation marks in your Bible. That’s because this is referencing Deuteronomy 4:24 where Moses says to the Israelites, “23 Be careful not to forget the covenant of the Lord your God that he made with you; do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the Lord your God has forbidden. 24 For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.”
I will get to that reference of a “consuming fire” a little bit more later on, but what are we to make of our scripture as a whole this week? It means that we shouldn’t take God for granted. We shouldn’t think of God as only a loving father or a benevolent grandfather. God is more than that. He is holy, and He is fearful. That’s not something we often talk about, and those out in the world and in more liberal-leaning churches have forgotten about that. But because of this great, powerful, awesome, consuming fire, his love, and His unmerited favor (you put the two together, and you call it grace), we are to be heirs of His kingdom that will never be shaken.
In other words, because of God’s grace, we will live eternally as heirs in a kingdom that will never be disturbed or politically unsettled or in any way economically fragile or suffer hardships like drought or famine or earthquakes or defeat; it won’t be a kingdom that will have good rulers and then be taken over by tyrants. We are heirs to an eternal, victorious, wonderful, perfect kingdom. And we should never take that for granted.
I think the reason why it’s easy to take that for granted is because we really, truly don’t know what it’s like. We don’t really know what it all means. We’re heirs of an eternal kingdom? It almost sounds blasphemous, doesn’t it?
Why? Well, here we are, living day to day, getting up in the morning, going to work or going to school––going through the mundaneness of life. We experience our ups and downs, our struggles with health and paying the bills and putting food on the table, and ‘oh, the roof is leaking, the car needs to get fixed,’ and we see the better things that certain people have, and it’s easy to compare ourselves to those people who have those things. And we can’t even imagine the things of Heaven and what we are to receive there.
I’ve told you about the magnificence and the jaw-dropping things we saw out west. I saw a post on Facebook just yesterday where someone I knew posted about the Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah Wilderness in Bloomfield, NM. Say that three times fast.
I had no idea there even was such a thing, and I wish I had a screen here or something to show you. It’s on Atlas Obscura if you get a chance to take a look at it. The article calls it, “full of geologic eye candy like otherworldly spires, mushroom-shaped hoodoos (not to be confused with witchcraft or the evil eye), and prehistoric fossils.”
WITH ITS MUTED COLORS AND striking geology, this unusual landscape feels like a martian planet. Pale, mushroom-shaped hoodoos loom above the rocky earth like enormous alien trees. Petrified tree stumps and ancient bones speckle the badlands like prehistoric markers of its long-gone inhabitants.
Located in the arid San Juan Basin of northwest New Mexico, the Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah Wilderness Study Area is located on 6,563 acres of public Bureau of Land Management land. It’s a hidden wonder of weathered rock formations often referred to as hoodoos, tent rocks, fairy chimneys, earth pyramids, or mushrooms.
I had no idea, but that’s pretty cool, right? The things we’re still learning about have always been there. How about this? Have you seen this? Look this one up––the barreleye fish.
According to the Wildlife Conservation Facebook Page:
Their heads are made up of a transparent shield and fluid that protects the fish’s eyes.
Through the transparent dome, you can see their eyes, brain and nerve endings in their head!
These mysterious creatures are rarely sighted. In fact, in approximately 5600 dives, researchers with the Monterey Bay Aquarium have only spotted these fish 9 times.
They were first discovered in 1939 and live in the Pacific Ocean between Japan and California. And looking further into it, there are a number of deep-sea animals that self-illuminate. It’s amazing to see. It’s like God gave them natural, digital fiber optics millennia ago.
These are just a few of the amazing things that have always been here, yet the average person has never heard about them until we come across them on the internet.
So, we know very little about our own planet; we don’t know anything about the splendor of Heaven. It’s too incomprehensible. And, of course, it’s easy to get stuck on what’s right in front of us, our everyday humble lives, and so it’s hard to wrap our minds around what it means for us to be heirs of the kingdom of Heaven.
So, we have in our Bibles a reminder that “since we are receiving a kingdom…”
And not just any kingdom, but a kingdom “that cannot be shaken,”
Let’s not take it for granted.
I like what the Asbury Bible Commentary says. It says, “The entire universe will shudder at the call to judgment on that final day. Only by heeding the voice of him now speaking can we stand the sifting judgment of God that will remove the entire created order (v.27). In its place, we are being given an eternal and therefore unshakable kingdom in which to abide in his presence forever (v.28).”
I want to go back to that word, “unshakable.” You know, an angel named Lucifer took that kingdom for granted and tried to shake that kingdom. Somehow, in the splendor of all of it, he didn’t think it was good enough and apparently didn’t think God was doing a good enough job at being God. In the book of Isaiah, the prophet speaks of a king of Babylon, but most theologians believe this is also talking about Satan:
In it, the prophet says this:
12
How you have fallen from heaven,
morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
you who once laid low the nations!
13
You said in your heart,
“I will ascend to the heavens;
I will raise my throne
above the stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon.[a]
14
I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.”
But the next several verses talk about the end of this King of Babylon, or Satan.
Did you know that this world that we live in is the world of Satan? Though God still owns this earth, the non-Christian or non-redeemed aspects of this world’s systems belong to Satan. 2 Corinthians 4:4 calls Satan the “god of this world,” in Ephesians 2:2, Paul calls him the “prince of the power of the air” and Jesus describes him as the “ruler of this world.” And this world will crumble, and so will he.
Ezekiel 28 is another passage that talks about Satan wanting to take over the kingdom of Heaven, only it references the King of Tyre, and this is where we get a lot of our understanding about the fall of Satan from Heaven.
I won’t read it all to you, but the idea is, yes, there was a rebellion in Heaven. Jesus said to his disciples in Luke 10:18 that he saw (past tense) Satan fall from Heaven.
Gotquestions.org put it this way:
In referencing Satan’s fall from heaven, Jesus most likely had in mind Isaiah 14:12, “How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!” The fall of Satan that Jesus saw happened after Lucifer’s sin, before Adam and Eve’s temptation in the Garden of Eden. In his pride, Lucifer had lifted himself up, but God had cast him down out of his original place in heaven (although he retains a limited access to heaven for now, according to Job 1:6). Jesus’ statement in Luke 10:18 speaks of Jesus’ pre-existence and the Lord’s defeat over the power of Satan in a general sense.
So what am I saying here? What I’m saying is there already was a rebellion in Heaven, and how did that turn out? In the Book of Revelation, chapter 12, we read that somehow Satan ended up convincing a third of Heaven’s angels to go along with him on this rebellion. But in Revelation chapter 20, we find out Satan’s end. God’s kingdom cannot be shaken. In fact, we’re all kind of surprised, aren’t we, that God was so lenient on Satan and his angels then, but he won’t be when it comes time for his ultimate judgment.
And at that time, when we receive our inheritance, we will know that there cannot be anyone or anything that can or even have the ability to try to shake God’s kingdom. Why? Because it’s already been tried, and those of us who endured this earth will know and want the beauty and splendor of what God has to offer us eternally, and so won’t those angels that stayed with God for this long.
And we ironically have Satan to thank for that because we know what it’s like to live in a world of sin and a life with a sinful nature. And we know what it’s like to have just a taste of God’s glory. And thanks to Jesus and the Holy Spirit, we know what it’s like to be free from sin.
So let us be thankful and so worship God acceptably.
What does it mean to worship God acceptably? Let’s go back to that Asbury Bible Commentary.
It states:
To receive it [our inheritance, the Kingdom of God], we dare not disregard Christ. Rather, the proper attitude is gratefulness for the opportunity now given us through our High Priest to worship God acceptably. Nor should this opportunity be taken for granted or exercised half-heartedly, for God is ever the God who shook the mountain in thunder and smoke, lightning and quake. Reverence and awe are due him. In the white-hot purity of his holiness every lesser thing shall be consumed as dross is devoured by fire, whether it be spiritless worship or listless service or staunchless faith.
This leads me back to the idea of God being an all-consuming fire in verse 29. This is in reference to what Moses said to the Hebrews in Deuteronomy.
He said,
23 Be careful not to forget the covenant of the Lord your God that he made with you; do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the Lord your God has forbidden. 24 For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
We kind of scratch our heads at the idea of God being jealous, don’t we? Those who are atheists and critics of religion often point this out. Why? Because we often look at jealousy as a bad thing, or at least sometimes an immature thing. But remember, God is perfect, and his jealousy is perfect, holy and warranted.
Gotquestions.org puts it this way:
In both Deuteronomy passages in which God is called a consuming fire, Moses is speaking first to warn the Israelites against idolatry (Deuteronomy 4:23-25) because God is a “jealous God” and will not share His glory with worthless idols. Idolatry provokes Him to a righteous anger which is justified when His holiness is disrespected. In Deuteronomy 9:3, Moses again refers to God as a consuming (or devouring) fire who would go ahead of the Israelites into the Promised Land, destroying and subduing their enemies before them. Here again we see God’s wrath against those who oppose Him depicted as fire that utterly consumes and destroys anything in His path.
Going back to the idea of Satan and his ultimate demise again, Gotquestions goes on to say that,
God’s holiness is the reason for His being a consuming fire, and it burns up anything unholy. The holiness of God is that part of His nature that most separates Him from sinful man. Isaiah writes, the godless tremble before Him: “Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning?” Isaiah answers this by saying that only the righteous can withstand the consuming fire of God’s wrath against sin, because sin is an offense to God’s holiness. But Isaiah also assures us that no amount of our own righteousness is sufficient (Isaiah 64:6).
When we worship God, we should be, as we talked about last week, thankful for his love, his grace, his provision, and for answering our prayers––all of these wonderful things––but let’s not forget that God is also all-powerful and frightening.
The same God that made the bunny rabbit also made the Great White shark and calls his son The Lamb of God and the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.
I think we’re all familiar with the verse from Proverbs 1:7 that says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I cannot for the life of me understand how the mafia can do what they do. Have they no fear of God? Apparently not.
A.W. Pink, who was a Christian author in England in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, said, Happy the soul that has been awed by a view of God’s majesty, that has had a vision of God’s awful greatness, His ineffable holiness, His perfect righteousness, His irresistible power, His sovereign grace. Does someone say, “But it is only the unsaved, those outside of Christ, who need to fear God”? Then the sufficient answer is that the saved, those who are in Christ, are admonished to work out their own salvation with “fear and trembling.” [There was a time] when it was the general custom to speak of a believer as a “God-fearing man.”
He went on to say that Godly fear is: that spirit which Jehovah is pledged to bless, that spirit to which the prophet referred when he said, “To this man will I (the Lord) look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at my word” (Isa. 66:2). It was this the apostle had in view when he wrote, “Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king” (I Pet: 2:17). And nothing will foster this godly fear like a recognition of the Sovereign Majesty of God.
I don’t know about you, but it’s in times of worship where I sense just a small taste of the sovereign majesty of God. As I worship, I find that his love pours in my spirit, his comfort, his assurance, and sometimes a bit of his majesty.
I’ve come into this church and others and have sensed those things as well. There’s a bit of God’s majesty that is combined with his love and his grace that permeates the atmosphere of his sanctuary and in worship.
One time, I gave a sermon on what it means to worship, and it was kind of similar to last week’s sermon where I talked about worship being more than just praising God in church once a week, but putting God first as a lifestyle––24/7 every day.
In our day-to-day lives, even living as a Christian, it’s easy to forget that God is a holy, righteous God who has holy, righteous anger and is all-powerful, and is worthy of reverent fear. He is worthy of our love and adoration, and he is worthy of extreme gratitude that we can never repay.
But he is also worthy of our worship in reverence and awe. Our worship can be, and should be, joyful and sung in gladness; we can get up and shout for joy or dance as David did. But there are times when we need to be reminded of God’s power and holiness. We can’t take God for granted. We can’t treat Him as that “benevolent grandfather in the sky” or think of Him as someone who just shirks at the same sins that the rest of society does. That’s a different God. That’s the “god of this world,” or perhaps an idol of your own making, which Paul reminds us are demons––so again, the “god of this world.”
We have to worship God in spirit and in truth [that means with both our hearts and our minds], and in reverence and in awe. We cannot take God––his love, his grace, his unmerited favor, his blessings, his provisions, his sacrifice, his righteousness, his righteous judgments, his righteous decrees, his awesome power––anything about God for granted. That’s why we pause and have communion as often as we do. I don’t know a single church that has communion as often as we do. I used to think it was overkill, but now I understand how necessary it is.
We have to remember even though he is to be feared that his ‘consuming fire’ is also an example of his love. I could go on and on and on about that, but let’s be thankful that we serve a God who is a consuming fire, and that consuming fire is a fire of what one might call a mix of danger and love––kind of like the bunny rabbit and the shark, right? And for which we should worship God soberly.
Two quick verses from Psalms before we close:
Psalm 96:4 and 9 says, “For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; he is to be feared above all gods…Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness; tremble before him, all the earth.”
Let’s remember to do that as we make thankfulness and worship a lifestyle. Let us also never take God’s incomprehensible love, unmerited favor, sovereignty, incomprehensible power, great righteousness, both his forgiveness and judgment or our citizenship in an unshakable eternal home for granted.
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on First Baptist Church of Watkins Glen
Featured Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay
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