Alright, if you can turn your Bibles with me to Hebrews chapter 12, and I'm going to be reading from verse 18 to 24. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 18 to 24. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 18 to 24, reading out of the NASB. For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched, and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind, and to the blast of trumpet and the sound of words, which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them.

For they could not bear the command, even if a beast touches the mountain, it will be stoned. And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, I am full of fear and trembling. But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, who are enthralled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray for guidance. We pray for the weightiness of your word to strike our thoughts, our hearts, and our very lives. Ordain these times, Lord God, that we may see a glimpse of who you are, that we may remember who it is that we worship, who it is that saved us, and that who it is, Lord, that we are hoping to come, Lord God, and redeem.

So we pray for your blessing. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. I have a tendency, when I watch movies, it's hard for me to stay awake. So I have, I think that part of the reason is I don't get good sleep, so I'm kind of perpetually a bit tired.

And the other part of it is there's like something going on in my head constantly. It's hard for me to turn it off. So as soon as when there's, you know, I get distracted, I tend to relax. And so when I relax, I fall asleep, you know. So it's a running joke in my house whenever we watch a movie to see how long it's going to take before I fall asleep.

You know, the good part of that is I can watch the same movies over and over again. You know, and remember when Blockbuster used to be open? Like Esther would tell me to go pick up a movie, and then, you know, I don't know how many times I would come back thinking like, "This movie looks good," and then she would just start laughing.

You just saw that four months ago, you know, and I just don't remember anything, you know. And so that's the benefit of that. But the bad part of it is I can't thoroughly explain to you any movie because at some point I fell asleep. And I remember very specifically this movie, the movie Up.

And I forgot how old my children were, but our whole family went to watch it. And I remember it started out well with this old man growing old together with his wife, and then I fell asleep. And then I woke up and this crazy bird at some top of Grand Canyon with this balloon.

And for the rest of the movie, it's like, "What is going on?" And I was like, "Esther, what's going on?" She's like, "Just watch the movie." They were so riveted by this movie, and I couldn't even ask. So the whole movie, I had no understanding what happened. Something happened that caused this man living in the suburbs, enjoying his life, is being chased by this crazy bird, right?

So obviously I had to watch it again, and I said, "Oh, that was a crucial part that I fell asleep in." Another movie that I remember very distinctly was the movie Inception. And everybody said, "Oh, it was such a great movie." Then I just remember every time they fell asleep, I fell asleep.

And then I woke up, it's like, "What is this? How many dreams does he have?" And then recently we said, "You know what? Let's watch it again because maybe it'll make more sense to me." And sure enough, I fell asleep. So to this day, all I know is it's about dream.

Something happens in the dream, and then there's this little thing that they turn at the end, and then they die. So I can't explain to you exactly what happened, but that's kind of what I remember. So unless the movie is riveting, I usually have a hard time staying awake.

That's why I love AMC theaters because they have the recliner now. So whenever I go watch a movie with them, usually I wake up with somebody angry because I snored in the middle of the movie. Well I say all of this because the text that we're looking at in chapter 12, verse 18 through 24, it presents to us two mountains, Mount Sinai and Mount Zion.

Mount Sinai is where the Israelites received God's commandment and the law. So God comes and He speaks to Moses and He gives the law. And so He's telling them, to these Jews, that you did not come to this mountain, but you came to Mount Zion. And Mount Zion is representative of God's dwelling, God's place.

And so that's where they received the grace of God. The understanding of Mount Sinai is crucial. It is essential to understanding Mount Zion, what it is that He was trying to present for the past 11 chapters. So because of the way that the gospel has been presented, because New Testament, to be honest, is easier to understand because it's straightforward.

Who is God? Well God is love. God is this. What is the gospel? The gospel is this. What did Jesus do? He died on the cross, He shed His blood. So it is very straightforward. Old Testament is all a shadow. Just like the shadow, it's not clear. It points to something that is in reality.

But the shadow is the preparation so that when the reality comes, that the reality would make better sense. But what happens is when you skip the Old Testament and you come just to the New Testament, there's so many things that really don't make a lot of sense. But because you hear it over and over and over again, you don't question it.

So one of the fundamental questions about the cross, why did Jesus die? We know the answer. Because He loved us, He died for our sins. But why did He die? Why couldn't He just forgive us? Because when we forgive people, we just forgive. Right? He shed His blood for our sins.

We don't shed blood for people. Nobody practices that. So we heard the gospel, and especially if you grew up in the church, without ever really digging, why did He have to die? What was the shedding of blood? What was this drama of being crucified, dying and resurrected? What is the purpose of the church?

So we have this very superficial understanding because we fell asleep at the crucial part of the preparation. And so our understanding of the gospel, if you ask me what the movie Up is about, it's about an old man, and he's lost his wife, and then some crazy bird. But that doesn't really describe it.

I tell you, Inception, it's about some dream, and then they have another dream inside of the dream, and then they have many other dreams inside that dream. That's about what I can tell you. So it's probably not wrong, but it's not a good synopsis of the whole movie. If you grew up in the Western church, the emphasis has been predominantly, I would say 90-95% of your understanding of your faith strictly comes from the New Testament because it is easier to understand.

In fact, years ago, I was at a pastor's conference with about 3,500 pastors in the room, and one of the seminars was that we need to preach the Old Testament. And he asked all the pastors, "How many of you are currently preaching out of the Old Testament?" And so he asked us to stand up, and I happened to be one of maybe six or seven people, and I was so proud.

That was me. But I was also very surprised that out of 3,500 pastors who preach on a regular basis, there was only about five or six of us. And so the point that he was trying to make is the same point that I'm trying to make this morning, that when we have a superficial understanding of Mount Sinai, you may be able to articulate Zion, His grace.

You may be able to articulate the gospel because you've heard it, you've memorized it, you sang it, but you don't understand the depth of what it is that we have in Christ. So I actually intended to have this sermon in one sermon about explaining the Mount Sinai and then talking about Mount Zion.

But I felt like I'm not going to do it justice if I just skim through Mount Sinai. So I wanted to make sure that we studied this and what he's referring to, and then we'll get to what, when he says, "We didn't come to Sinai, we came to Zion," so that we'd have a better appreciation of what we talk about next week.

So let's look at it. Mount Sinai. He said, "You did not come to the first chapter 12, verse 18 to 21, for you have not come to the mountain that can be touched and to the blazing fire and to the darkness and the gloom and whirlwind." Let me just stop right here.

He's referring to God coming to give the law. And the way that he describes it is blazing fire, darkness, gloom, and whirlwind. Again, if you grew up in the Western church, when we think about the presence of God, when Jesus comes, I'm going to walk to him, I'm going to sit on his lap, depending on how old you are, hold his hand, and so we have this lovey-dovey feeling of the presence of God.

The Old Testament Jew did not have that same view. Their starting point at Mount Sinai was terror, gloom, and whirlwind, and to the blast of the trumpet and the sound of words which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them. Think about how often we talk about how God spoke to us or we want God to speak to us.

The Jews, when they heard God's voice, begged that God would stop speaking because they were so terrified of his presence that even when he spoke, they said, "We can't handle this. Please ask God to stop talking to us directly. Speak through our mediator Moses." Verse 20, "For they could not bear the command, 'If even a beast touches the mountain, it will be stoned.' And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, 'I am full of fear and trembling.'" Now prior to this event, it's not like the Israelites had no relationship with God.

They knew about God from a distance. They heard about God. They've seen his mighty works, but this is the first instance where God from heaven is physically coming and making his physical presence known in the nation of Israel at Sinai to give the law at the inauguration of Israel as a nation.

And in his presentation, it is not a party. It's not a light event. As soon as he shows up, there is fear and terror, fire, darkness, gloom, whirlwind. In fact, if you can show the picture that comes up, if you can darken it, I want you to see the outline of the mountain.

Okay? Our projector isn't that sharp, but if you can see, I want this picture because this is what's being described for us in Hebrews, and I'm going to jump to the Old Testament to show you what the author of Hebrews is referring to. And so I want that image because that's the image that's embedded in Israel's history.

Okay. So remember that. So remember that picture. This is God physically presenting himself to the nation of Israel. So if you can turn the lights back on, he's referring to what's taking place in Exodus and Deuteronomy. Exodus chapter 19, 16 to 18, it says this. So it came about on the third day when it was morning.

If you looked at that picture, you would naturally think that maybe it's dark because it's at nighttime. He said, no, it's morning. Only reason why it's dark is because he said God's presence came. And that's not a made up picture. That's an accurate picture because the Bible describes darkness fell.

In fact, remember when we had Dr. Harris here, the darkness and the glory, he describes at the third hour when God wanted to inaugurate his new covenant, remember what happened? Darkness fell on earth. And he was veiling his glory because sinful man cannot be in the presence of this holy God.

And that's how the covenant, the first covenant of the law, when it was given, darkness and terror falls upon them in the morning. That there were thunder and lightning, flashes and a thick cloud upon the mountain and a very loud trumpet sound so that all the people were in the camp trembled.

There wasn't this celebration, God is drawing near to us, let's all gather together to go watch. That was not what happened. As soon as they saw God's glory coming upon Mount Sinai, terror falls upon them. They were afraid that they're going to die because of this presence, verse 17, and Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God and they stood at a foot of the mountain.

Now Mount Sinai was all the smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire and the smoke descended like the smoke of the furnace and the whole mountain quaked violently. I want you to look at the next pictures that I have up here. This is an actual picture of the way they believe that it's Mount Sinai.

It's in Arabia in some place. So I don't have time to go over the details but there's plenty of documentaries or you can go on Google and look this up, YouTube and look at videos because it's well documented that they believe and it's very convincing that this is the mountain that is being referred to Mount Sinai.

If you look at it, it looks like there's two mountains. You have the one in the front and one in the back. Actuality it's the same mountain. It's just that at some point the color changes. The top of the mountain is black and then at some point in the middle it's light.

So it's the same mountain. Let me show you the satellite picture of that mountain. So because secular archaeologists are also intrigued why that would be there up on that mountain because they don't see any other mountain, any of that because it's a complete desert area. So their explanation is at one point there must have been a volcanic eruption that caused that mountain, just the top part of it, to be black.

Well since then they've gone up to test these rocks and if you can turn to the next one, this picture you probably can't see too well but you'll see that the top of it is dark and then right next to it it's more light. And so they were able to study the rocks and they broke it up and found out that it's not volcanic ash at all because if it's volcanic it should be dark all the way through.

It's only dark on the surface. Meaning that the only logical explanation is something external burned these rocks and it stayed. So I'm just going to leave it at that. If you can turn the lights back on. Now that's not directly connected to what I'm about to say but it is intriguing that we have physical evidence of all that is mentioned here.

And along with that if you watch the documentary they'll tell you that at the bottom of Mount Sinai God made borders and so that they could not come up the mountain and at that archaeological site they found piles and piles of rocks all around to make borders so they couldn't come through.

And it is at that mountain when Moses comes up and he comes down, Aaron and the Israelites made an altar to the golden calf. They found an altar at the bottom of this mountain with an altar with images of golden calf on it. And that's also the mountain where Elijah goes and hides in the cave and they found that cave.

So it's very interesting. So there's more than enough evidence to show that this is the mountain that the Bible is referring to and the fact that God's glory shone up up there with blazing fire and that it burned up the mountain and that it still remains there shows you how intense this scene was.

Exodus chapter 19, 12-13 says, "You shall set bounds for the people all around saying, beware that you do not go up on the mountain or touch the border." Remember the border that I referred to. "Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death. No hand shall touch him but he shall surely be stoned or shot through whether beast or man he shall not live." His presence did not invite people to come.

They were so terrified and God actually tells them, "If you come to me, you will die. You or any other beast." Mount Sinai was not a welcoming site. It caused them to fall in terror. Exodus chapter 19, 22 says, "When the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and God answered him with a thunder.

The Lord came down on Mount Sinai to the top of the mountain and the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain and Moses went up. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, 'Go down, warn the people so that they do not break through to the Lord's gates and many of them perish.

Also let the priests who come near to the Lord consecrate themselves or else the Lord will break out against them." To break out means to have disease or even death sentence. So the priests preparing and consecrating themselves, nobody drew near to God casually because it meant death. Again in Exodus chapter 20, 18-19, "All the people perceived the thunder and lightning flashes and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood at a distance." They didn't run to it, they stood at a distance.

Then they said to Moses, "Speak to us yourself and we will listen but let not God speak to us or we will die." If you remember the scene when Moses is up in the mountain as God is commanding him to lead the nation of Israel, he says, "Let me see your glory." And God says, "If I show you my full glory, you will die.

But because you have asked," he says, "I'm going to cover you and I'm going to pass by." So you're going to see a glimpse of my glory, partial glory as I pass by, not my full glory. But that glory, that reflection of that glory of God as he is protected, as he's passing by was reflecting on the face of Moses and when he came down and started to speak to the nation of Israel, they were terrified just by the reflection of that glory on Moses' face.

So they beg him, "Go into the tent. Speak to us through the tent. Put a veil on you." Because they were terrified of his presence and his very voice. Again in Deuteronomy chapter 5, 24 through 27, you said, "Behold, the Lord our God has shown us his glory and his greatness and we have heard his voice from the midst of the fire.

We have seen today that God speaks with man, yet he lives," referring to Moses. Now why should we die for this great fire will consume us? You see how talking about God's fire, they didn't automatically think like, "Oh, if we go there, we're going to live." They said, "If we go to God, we're going to die." That's what the Jews saw.

That's what they were thinking. If we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer, then we will die. If we keep hearing from God, we're going to die. Think about that from the new covenant perspective in Western Christianity, how the gospel is introduced to us. God loves you, has a wonderful plan for your life.

Whenever we hear anything harsh, we automatically, "This doesn't fit the gospel that I know." Whenever there's a warning about God's holiness, it's like, "It doesn't fit the gospel that I know, but it's the gospel of the Bible." Because the starting point in the Western church doesn't allow the judgment of God.

And yet, Mount Sinai, it is clear. It is clear in the scripture because this is the way God presented himself. Verse 26, "For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire as we have and lived?

Go near and hear all that the Lord our God says, then speak to us all that the Lord our God speaks to you, and we will hear it and do it." When I was in college, I was a Bible major, so I spent four years in undergrad studying the Bible.

Then after I graduated, I went to seminary and spent a couple more years studying the Bible. So, minimum of six years I was studying the Bible. So when I came out, obviously I thought I have a good grasp of the Bible, learned systematic theology, how to do exegesis, went through the different parts of scripture.

But it wasn't until I started preaching through the Bible I realized how superficial my understanding of the gospel was. I started, first of all, and the reason why I started preaching through the Bible wasn't because of an example that I saw or somebody told me that that's the way to preach.

I just ran out of material. You know, after preaching three, four years topically, every week the greatest struggle was what am I going to say about discipleship this week? What am I going to say about, you know, lordship? What am I going to say about prayer? What am I going to say about word?

So after about three years of preaching with the same group, you know, either I have to move church because I ran out of material, you know, or I'm going to have to repeat these same sermons over and over again. And then I remember Chuck Smith, you know, I was listening to a seminar and they said, we're just going to preach the Bible.

You know, we're just going to open up the Bible in 1 Timothy. And so I said, yeah, that sounds good. So I remember very distinctly I started with the gospel of John. After that I moved to Philippines. And then I went to Galatians. And then I started studying 1 and 2 John.

And then I went to study the book of Romans and then to Hebrews. And eventually I made it through majority of the New Testament. And then I started jumping through the Old Testament because I was running out in the New Testament. And then I just started preaching through the Old Testament.

And it wasn't until about four or five years into the study, systematically, verse by verse, through book by book, and I began to realize my theology has completely started to change. And the primary thing that was starting to really be highlighted, even after six years of Bible education at seminary, was God's nature of His holiness.

And I really felt like I got punched in the face, like, of course I knew God was holy. If you take systematic theology, you talk about the attribute of God, holiness is always on the top. So it wasn't that I wasn't taught. It wasn't that I didn't hear sermons.

But to the degree that the Bible punches you in the face about this attribute and how every other attribute, everything that I know about the Bible and the gospel, stems from understanding Mount Sinai. It stems from understanding the law, why the law was given, and proper view of who God is and in view of that, who I am.

Part of the reason why we wrestle, why we have so much problem in the Western church, and again, this is not unique to the Western church, but part of the reason why is because we're still at the center. We view God as a supreme being who is so enamored with us that even though we won't articulate it that way, but He's our servant.

And so we receive Him and reject Him based upon what He does for me. What has He done for me? And so we evaluate churches that way. What does the church do for me? What does this small group have to do for me? What do these leadership have to do for me?

Because we're still at the center. Mount Sinai totally obliterates all of that. Because the whole purpose of the law is to teach us that you are dead in your trespasses and so that you may see how utterly sinful you are. That was the purpose of Mount Sinai. And that's exactly how it is described.

So you remember Israel's history was God in heaven. They were speaking to Him, all of a sudden He comes to Mount Sinai. And this is the closest that the Israelites have ever seen Him physically. They heard it from a distance. They were told through the patriarchs. But now they're seeing a physical picture and the first encounter with Him is absolute terror.

Absolute terror. So imagine that that God that they saw at Mount Sinai, now at the end of Exodus say, I'm going to come near. I told you, you can't even come to the bottom of the mountain. But I'm going to come. Set up the tabernacle. Because I'm coming. The tabernacle was not a community center.

So if the Israelites were afraid to even hear His voice, can you imagine what this did to the nation of Israel when God said, I'm going to come to that tabernacle. If a God that I saw from a distance terrified me, and God set it up so that all 12 tribes were equal distance to this tabernacle.

And this tabernacle at the Holy of Holies was a concentrated presence of God that they saw from a distance where they didn't even want to hear from Him. Imagine what that did to the nation of Israel. That's why in 2 Corinthians 3, 7 and verse 9, Apostle Paul calls the ministry of Mount Sinai as ministry of death and ministry of condemnation.

I guarantee you, nobody casually came to the tabernacle. Because the tabernacle reminded them of death. Can you imagine how bloody this scene was? And if you've ever seen a physical, physical, you know, setup of a tabernacle, or just imagine how big, the tabernacle was not huge. It was not a size of a city.

It was probably the size of maybe, maybe our building. It was not huge. And they had to constantly sacrifice day after day for every sin committed by over a million people. So you can imagine how many animals were being slaughtered every day that they smelled the animals. Every day they saw the blood flow.

And all of this reminded them, this is what you deserve. You come here, this is what you deserve. So the tabernacle was not a welcoming place. And God deliberately showed this to mankind, to Israel. And that's why the author of Hebrews is telling them, you can draw near because God's not calling you to Sinai.

Because if He calls you to Sinai, you will die. You need to understand what Sinai is so that we can understand what Zion is. There's a reason why it says in Proverbs 8.10, "Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." In the Western world, if you grew up in the Western church and you've heard the gospels exclusively through the Western pulpit, you probably heard at some point, the fear is not referring to terror.

The fear he's referring to is talking about reverence and honor. That's probably what you heard. Because the terrified presence of God doesn't fit the gospel of the Western church. Because He loves you, has a wonderful plan for your life. No matter what you do, He forgives you. And so because we've exclusively heard the gospel that way, it doesn't fit our paradigm.

So the way that it is described is, he's not talking about being terrified in the presence of God. He's talking about honor and reverence. Well guess what? That's exactly what it means, to be terrified. To be terrified of the presence of God is the beginning of wisdom. Why is the fear of the Lord beginning of wisdom?

Because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of our salvation. Until you recognize who it is that we have offended, until you recognize who it is that you will meet outside of the blood of Christ, and there is no terror, then there's no need for the gospel. The beginning of wisdom, the beginning of salvation is recognizing that the one that we have offended is that God of Mount Sinai.

They couldn't even hear His voice. That's why He says in Matthew 10, 28, "Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul, but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Does that sound like reverence to you?

Does that sound like honor? That's what He said, "No, fear, honor Him who can kill you in hell." Does that sound like, no, that's terror. Think about how often we make decisions and we compromise because we're afraid of what other people are going to think of us. We're afraid of the consequence in this earth.

But He said if you're going to be terrified in anything, be terrified where you really should be terrified. Not only is there a consequence physically, but there's consequence in eternity who can send you to hell. If you're going to be terrified, if any fear is going to guide you in your decision, if any fear is going to cause you to make certain decisions and live a certain way, make sure it's the fear of the Lord.

That's why Mount Sinai is essential in understanding Zion. Without understanding, grace is just a free gift. It's just like Halloween, they're giving you candy for free. You did nothing. That's why when Apostle Paul introduces the gospel in Romans chapter 1, he says, "The wrath of God is being revealed against all unrighteousness." The wrath of God.

R.C. Sproul describes the word wrath in Greek as "orge" where we get the word "orgy" is unbridled passion. No self-control. That's where the word comes from. And he describes the word wrath there as God without constraint, without mercy. He is unleashing his anger towards sinners. He says that in the end, all that we have seen about the wrath and the terror of God, all of that, all of that was tempered because he knew his son was coming.

But on the day of judgment, all of that will be behind. And we have a tendency to think, again, the idea of hell doesn't fit Western Christianity. So the way that hell is described is, hell is a place where God withdraws himself. There's no presence of God at all.

So you're kind of like washing his hands, "Oh, God's not guilty of hell. You deserve that you go there." But God kind of withdraws. That's not how the Bible describes hell. Hell is a place where the grace of God has been withdrawn. It is the full display of his glory without constraint, without the covering of the blood of Christ.

So heaven is a place where we see the full degree of his grace. And hell is a place where we see the full degree of his glory in his wrath. And both places is magnificent and terrifying because of God. That's why John Newton says in his song, "Amazing Grace," "Twas grace that taught my heart to fear." He's like, "Oh, because we're under grace, there's no fear in our hearts." He said, "No, it's the grace of God that caused me to fear." Because it's the fear of the Lord that is the beginning of salvation.

And it was grace my fears relieved. Charles Spurgeon in his autobiography has a whole chapter dedicated saying God's law tormented him before he came to saving faith in Christ. It was because he understood what it meant to be in the presence of God by the law that drove him to Christ.

Martin Luther, the whole Reformation, Protestantism, it's based upon this man. And he describes his salvation as hating righteousness, recognizing that he could not appease God with the law, which caused him to see that that's what grace was. Rob Bell wrote a book called "Erasing Hell." And it's because his idea of the gospel doesn't fit hell.

How can God be fair if he allows hell? Why would God do that? Again, the reason why it doesn't fit him is because his very understanding of the gospel, his very understanding of God himself, he fell asleep. He doesn't realize the primary person that has been offended is not the world, is not Satan, it's God himself.

When we are in fear, who do we run to? When we're younger, we'll run to mom or dad because we assume that they can protect us. So if you go to a playground and there's a bully, we run to mom and dad because mom and dad's bigger. And so you feel safe.

When we grow up, you know, we're stronger than our parents at some point, and so we can't run to them, so we run to the police. So they come with their guns. Or maybe they're too far, so you'll buy a gun. Whatever that may be, fear of something that may harm us, so when we are afraid, we go to something bigger and stronger to protect us.

But here's the dilemma of mankind. What caused the greatest fear and greatest terror was God himself. So who do you run to if God's the one that you're afraid of? Where do you run when you see God coming, knowing that that's where life is, but that's also where I'm going to be destroyed?

Oh, what a wretched man that I am. Where do I run from? Where do I go to? If God's the one that causes the greatest terror. We've heard the gospel through the Western channels where God has been presented because we're marketing the gospel to get as many people through the door, and the deception of Western Christianity is that so many people have come through the door not knowing who God is, and when God, when Jesus says, they will say, "Lord, Lord," and He says, "I never knew you.

You didn't know me." That's how He was going to describe, "You did not know me." You regurgitated the gospel. You said the right things, but you didn't know me because they did not understand Mount Sinai. He's not unconditionally in love with rebellious sinners. He is holy, wrathful, angry, and vengeful.

Yeah, vengeful. That's what it says. That's what the Bible says. You leave room for the vengeance of God. So if your paradigm was created simply by the New Testament preaching of the gospel, and you jump through all the difficulty, "I don't want to know this wrathful God. I don't want to know this scary God.

I want to get to the new God of the New Testament," you can easily miss what Christ has done on the cross. That's why Isaiah 6, verse 5, this holy man, as he is being prepared to be sent out to represent God, it wasn't enough that he got the message correct.

He needed to know who God is. It's not enough that you study, then you can regurgitate and tell you, "I got this, and then I'm presenting it to you." A representative of God needs to properly understand God Himself. That's why God doesn't just give him the words. God reveals His glory.

As soon as he's in the presence of God, in Isaiah chapter 6, verse 5, he says, "Woe is me. Woe is me." You know what the word "woe" means? Literally it means, "I'm undone. I'm dead." That's what that means. I'm dead. I'm not going to survive this. That's what that means.

And this is a man that God handpicked to represent Him, and His response in the presence of God is, "I am dead. I'm a man of unclean lips from the people of unclean lips." Meaning, he knew that he was being called to open his mouth to present God. But how can I use this dirty mouth to present this?

That's what he meant. So fear and terror fell upon him. And it's not just Isaiah. In every instance, whether it was the disciples, John in the book of Revelations, elders at the throne of God, the angels, the holy creatures in the presence of this holy God, covering their eyes to veil themselves from His glory because they were terrified of His presence, were circling His throne saying, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty." Every instance that a human being, a sinner in the presence of this holy God, is terrified.

But that's what he means, that you did not come to Mount Sinai. Because to a first century Jew, they didn't have to be taught to be terrified by God. Their whole experience with God was terrifying. There's a reason why they wouldn't pronounce His name. And if you read the Old Testament, they changed His name Yahweh to Adonai because they were afraid that they were going to break one of His commandments to use His name in vain.

So he said, "Just in case." I don't know if that's what God meant, but just in case, we don't want to mess with the law. I remember Adab and Nebihu, God gave them specific instructions and they didn't follow strictly and because of that, the holy fire comes and consumes them and they die.

So imagine, so you know what, we're not going to get this wrong. We're not even going to pronounce His name. So to this day, you know, you probably heard the name Jehovah, Yahweh. You know why we have Yahweh and Jehovah? Because the Hebrew language doesn't have vowels and they didn't pronounce it for so many years.

We're guessing, is it Yahweh or is it Jehovah? I think more people lean toward Yahweh. But that's the reason why we have Jehovah and Yahweh. You didn't have to tell first century Jew, have reverence, be terrified, take this seriously. In fact, they have to be told exactly the opposite.

God's not calling you to Hasanah, Sinai. He's calling you to Zion. We'll talk about that next week. But remember the progression, the whole progression of the gospel is God from heaven coming to Mount Sinai and then that terrifying view of Sinai, God says, I'm going to come in the tabernacle, get ready.

So you better believe they took every command seriously. Touching of the poles, presenting the measurements, where they're supposed to go, where they're not supposed to go, what sacrifices they're supposed to make, what sacrifices they're not supposed to make, and they bring a tainted animal and as a result of that they die.

And they break any commandment, they would die. So it wasn't just, oh, we made a mistake, God forgives us. He's like, no, if you did that, you came and touched the holy things when you're not supposed to touch it. So I guarantee you people did not casually come into the tabernacle.

My guess is every time they needed to go to the tabernacle, they had probably had a meeting in their family. And maybe they probably didn't take their children either because just in case any of the kids run into a place where they're not supposed to go and they die.

They probably prepared. When we go there, here are the instructions. We're supposed to wait outside. The priest is supposed to come. He's supposed to lay his hands. We only go in where they tell us. We only speak when they tell us to speak. When it's time to leave, we leave.

And when the priest say to come, we come. When they tell to go, we go. Everybody get that? The presence of the tabernacle was so terrifying. My guess is that they took that very, very seriously. That's why at that tabernacle, when they went to the temple, and from the temple, he sent this Holy Spirit in us.

And then that Spirit that is in us, that they were so terrified of, he says, now you are the temple of God. And that's what Apostle Paul means in Corinthians chapter 3 and chapter 6. You have a church who is divided, not taking sin seriously. Worship is in chaos.

Do you not know that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you? So when a Jew heard this, that terrifying scene, that terrifying God, that God that they were so afraid of in tabernacle, he's in you now, it would have created terror in them, realizing that they are the temple of God, individually and collectively.

You see, somebody who does not understand this is not going to understand the weightiness of worship. They say, worship is somewhere we come, we sing some songs, you know, and then it's how far is the church, you know. We've made it so casual, make it easy as possible, and as a result of marketing the church, we have this weightiness of what it is that God has called us to do, and most people don't understand in our generation that we're approaching a holy, holy, holy God.

And the only reason why you and I are not consumed is because if you're a child of God, we are covered by the blood of Christ. And the only one that could have saved us from that wrath of God, that terrifying scene of God, was His only begotten Son.

And it is that that covers it, that that He's referring to in Mount Zion. People ask me, like, why do you keep wearing a suit? I have people tell me, it's like, this is California, hang loose, man. You know, relax. And I know, I know I look like a fuddy-duddy.

You know, short and stocky people don't look good in anything. I'm very aware of my physical presence. I'm very aware. It's not because of fashion. In fact, I don't like it. I like being comfortable. I wear it because I recognize what it is that God has called me to do.

And it's really preparing my own heart. That's why I don't give you my opinions. And I'll tell you, if it's my opinion, I'll tell you it's my opinion. Because this is not my pulpit. I've been called to declare what the Bible says, even if it offends you, even if you hate me for it.

Before I am your servant, I am His servant. And so I want to make sure that what I do physically, mentally, and spiritually reflects what God has called me to do. It really is not much different for you. That calling is not just for me. As a church called to the presence of God, we don't have dress codes at our church.

Because I don't think saying you have to wear this and you've got to do this, that doesn't make it reverent. But I encourage you to examine when we come to church, do we recognize the God that we came to worship? Are we coming to church because it's just a gathering for me?

What am I going to get? Is the sermon going to be good for me? How much of our attitude reflects the God, the almighty, holy, holy God that we have come to honor and thank for covering us with the blood of Christ? Somebody who doesn't understand Mount Sinai takes his own sin lightly.

One saved, always saved. Our whole doctrine is based upon a cliche, a bumper sticker. Christians are not perfect but forgiven. So our whole understanding of salvation is by a bumper sticker or for cliches or little things or blogs that we've heard. Man or woman who doesn't understand who God is takes his sin lightly.

Takes the word of God lightly. Because not recognizing that this is his very breath that we are handling. Do not to pervert it to say whatever. Add to it or take away from it. Do not turn from it to the left or to the right. And a man or woman who does not understand who God is takes the church lightly.

Church becomes a place where it serves me. What does it do for me? We're at the center. We don't actually, we never say this out loud but that's our, everything is evaluated based upon what does it do for me? Not realizing this is the temple of God. I guarantee you nobody walked into the tabernacle saying, "The priest, they're not reaching out to me." I guarantee you nobody walked into the tabernacle thinking, "Oh, the altar is too far." They came in making sure that they followed the rule that they don't offend this holy God.

The church is the temple where God dwells collectively in us. Is our casual nature toward church and worship a reflection of a wrong view of God? Do we take the collective coming in the presence of God as if it's convenient, is it inconvenient? Does it actually reflect who God is?

First Peter chapter 3, 18, it says, "For Christ also died for sins once for all. The just for the unjust." Think about that. With all the yelling and screaming and marching and rioting about wanting justice but the greatest injustice that the world has ever seen is Christ crucified. Because the only innocent man who died, the only true innocent man who died, died for unjust sinners.

We come to celebrate injustice. We are saved because of injustice. We serve him. We worship him because of the greatest injustice that has been carried out by God the Father so he can dwell among us. Just for the unjust so that he might bring us to God. Having been put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.

I want to end with a practical application. There's reasons why we have, as you're walking through, I don't know how many of you guys noticed there's essential books. We have three essential books that we ask all our members to read. And the reason behind it, Holiness of God, R.C.

Sproul. Now I rarely recommend books because I'd rather have you be saturated with God's Word. But we recommend this as fundamental in the church because Holiness of God changes the paradigm that Western Christianity has about who God is. He's not a holy bellhop servant like we call him and then he comes running.

He didn't answer my prayer. Maybe God's not real because he doesn't serve us. This changes that paradigm. I think R.C. Sproul does the best job that I've read in helping us to change that paradigm. So even if you read it, if you read it superficially or you didn't really digest it, I highly recommend not just to read it but digest this.

And any part of it that you don't understand, go back and read it and ask questions. So this is a must. The second thing is the Gospel according to Jesus. There are other books that you can read for this, but I think he does the best job on this.

Gospel according to Jesus, knowing who God is helps us to understand what the Gospel is and what the Gospel does. It's not just like God just like, "Oh, you know what? I took sin very seriously, but since my son died, I don't care about sin anymore in the New Testament." Again, that's Western Christianity.

I'm knocking on the Western Christianity, but this is true probably of everywhere else. That's just where I am, so that's what I'm referring to. But this helps us to understand what does salvation look like? What does a sinner who's been covered by the blood of Christ having a personal relationship with this holy God look like?

That's what this book helps us to understand. He just goes through passage after passage, parable after parable to help us to understand, not as superficial as, "Oh, God loves you. I had a wonderful plan for you." Like, "Forgive it!" He goes detail. So again, this is why this is essential.

So if you don't understand this or maybe disagree with this, you're probably going to have a lot of problems with the way that I preach. You're going to have a lot of problems with the way that we present the Bible because you either don't understand this or you don't agree with it.

So this will help you at least understand why the preaching and teaching is a certain way at our church because we believe this to be true. And the third one is also from MacArthur. There are other books that you can read on this, but we think he does the most thorough job on what the biblical church looks like because if the church is a temple of God, we're going to want to know that he didn't just say, "Gather together and just figure it out and then reach the lost and try to figure out how to do it." He didn't do that.

Imagine a God who gave so much intricate details how the tabernacle and temple was to be built did not build a New Testament church and say, "You just figure it out." It's inconsistent with the God that we know, the Old Testament, and God didn't do that. He gave us intricate details of what we ought to follow, what the church should look like, standards of an elder, how to discipline when people are in sin.

And so all of these things are described in the New Testament that we just kind of give broad strokes. And so if we're going to approach this holy God, even though we're covered by the blood of Christ, we need to properly understand what the Bible teaches about the church.

What does he desire? Because this is the body of Christ. So if we're going to build a church that honors God, we have to figure out how to honor God the way he tells us to honor God. And I think he does the best job in doing this. So this is probably one of the more drier versions because if you're looking for a novel to fall asleep, you know, like to revive you, you're going to require to be committed to this and try to understand, wrestle with this.

And again, the reason why we practice church membership, the reason why we're so slow in establishing leadership in our church, and why we have certain things that we do, it all helps you to understand it from this book. So these are the three essential books that we encourage you to read because it will help you to understand your faith, but it also helps you to understand what we're trying to do at church.

And all of this so that we do not turn from his word to the left or to the right, that we don't view God based upon the prejudices that we've gained. That's fair, not fair. So much of Christianity is evaluated, received, and rejected based upon what we think is fair.

When we do that, we place ourselves above God. If God is truly king, even if every part of us says it's unfair, I trust God over my own judgment, right? All of this is so that we can understand Zion better because we did not come to Zion with Sinai.

God is not calling us to Sinai. Sinai was to better help us to understand what it is that we have in Christ, and we'll get to that next week. Let's pray. Let's take a few minutes as, again, our worship team comes to allow the word of God to dwell in us richly, to not to superficially follow Christ from a distance, that the Christ and the gospel that we profess isn't something that I've chosen to accept because it makes more sense to me, but the God that I worship is the God of the Bible.

So let's take some time to pray as our worship team leaves us.