To Encourage You

Hebrews 12:25 “See that you do not refuse him who is speaking.”

One of the themes of the Bible is the infinite power of the Word of God.  We are told in Genesis 1 that God spoke and the heavens, the earth, and everything that is in them were created.  It tells us that God “upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3).  Moreover, we are told that He will bring the created order to an end by His Word.  We are told this in Hebrews 12:26-27 with these words, “he has promised, ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.’ This phrase, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made.” 

As you ponder these words, do you realize that you and I are among those things that have been made? As such, God’s Word has had an all-pervasive effect on our lives regardless of whether we acknowledge it or not.  For example, we are only here because God has decreed that we exist. In Psalm 139:14-15 we are told, “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.”  Psalm 139:16 likewise reminds us that it is God’s Word that sustains us per the following words: “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” In other words, before God made each and every one of us, He determined the number of days we would be on this earth. He wrote it all in a book, as it were, and nothing can change it.  We will live just as long as God has determined; not one day more and not one day less. 

Finally, it is God’s Word that will determine our final destiny.  He has decreed in the words above from Hebrews 12 that there will be a great shaking of all created things. He is talking about how all created things will come to an end.  Then in the words immediately following these it says that this shaking will occur, “in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.” 

You see, God has decreed that just as He has created the universe and sustains it, he will consume it. What will be left is that one thing that cannot be shaken, i.e., His eternal kingdom.  Wonderfully, the Lord has made a way for us to be a part of it.  It is by faith in His eternal Son.  And so, the Lord is telling us in the verse above, “See to it that you do not refuse him who is speaking.” 

God has given us the gospel, written down for us to read in black and white, and by it He has made it possible for us to have eternal life by the living Word Who came into the world (John 1).  It is only as we believe His Word that we can be saved from the end that will come upon the entire created order.   In Colossians 1 we are told that it is by way of the gospel that “(God) has delivered us (who have believed) from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” 

The kingdom of His beloved Son: it is the only kingdom that can never be shaken.  So, are you a part of it, or are you refusing to listen to this One Who is speaking, for He has told us, “heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Matthew 24:35)? With these words Jesus was speaking of the created order, of which we are all a part. The world and all of its kingdoms will surely pass away. They will all be shaken.  But we can be part of another kingdom, an eternal one, the one and only kingdom that will never be shaken, that is, if we don’t refuse the One Who is speaking and Who has said to us, “the Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price” (Revelation 22:17).

May God help us to have a listening ear and a believing heart to the life-giving words that He is speaking.