Here we go, this evening, Hebrews chapter 12. And again, we're making our way through it, Lord willing, tonight. We're going to finish up Hebrews chapter 12. That's going to bring us to the final book of Hebrews, all right? Hebrews chapter 13. And look forward to getting towards the end and completing our study of what's been a wonderful book and a good study for us. We are looking at you need to get ready to face God face to face. And so we talked about Paul first looking back at how it felt to face God. Old Testament, that experience, and we'll talk about that again as we get into this tonight. Secondly, Paul looks ahead at glory, to the opportunity that's before us as New Testament believers. That's going to be us meeting God face-to-face. In both cases, it's asking us the question, have you prepared to meet God? You know, are we really taking time to think, you know, am I really ready to face God? Again, Amos 4.12 says, Therefore, thus will I do unto thee, O Israel, and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. That's a great statement, isn't it? I mean, it'd be good for us to go up to our neighbor, our family, anybody, just say, hey, I just got a question for you. Are you prepared to meet God? Now, you don't want to scare them, like you got something behind your back or something, but just that statement of thinking, you know, am I really? If I stepped into eternity, Right at this point in time, am I really ready to stand face to face with God? To be ready, we talked about last week, you need to be thinking right. So we gotta have the right thoughts about meeting God. And we talked about thinking right about God's glory. And look at verse 18. It says, for ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness and darkness and tempest. Okay, that was the story back then, Mount Sinai, God meeting with Israel, giving them the law and its darkness and its thunders and lightnings and an awesome sight. And again, do we begin to comprehend that idea of really walking into the glorious presence of God? Are we thinking right about God's authority? Look at verse 19. The sound of the trumpet and the voice of the words, that was the voice of God. Which voice, they that heard it, entreated that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. They sanctified the congregation for three days. They got ready to meet God, but then God spoke and there was an awesomeness about the authority of God. Are you thinking right about God's commandments? It says in verse 20, And again, do we understand the commands of God? I thought of the story of Shimei, the man that came out and cursed King David. Remember when David was fleeing from Absalom and he's going up that hillside, Shimei comes out and he mocks him. When David comes back victorious into Jerusalem, Shimei is afraid that David is going to kill him, but David shows mercy in front of all the people upon Shimei, but tells his son Solomon as he becomes king, take care of Shimei. And King Solomon wisely says to Shimei, you know what, you've got to stay in Jerusalem. You go out of Jerusalem, that's it, you forfeit your life. Shimei kept that commandment for, I think, a couple years, but some of his servants ran away, maybe knowing he couldn't come get them. He goes to get them, goes out of Jerusalem, not fearing the commandment, he comes back and King Solomon calls him to account and Shimei pays with his That was an earthly king, now a king that was acting in obedience to God, but an earthly king exercising absolute authority. Again, it's just a reminder to us, God's commandments are not negotiable, they are not suggestive, they are absolute and to violate them is to get the full force of God's law. Are we thinking right about that? Are we thinking right about God's power? that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake. Okay, so Paul, looking back at Moses' experience, expresses it as even this great man of God that knew God better than anybody. There was no man like Moses whom God met face to face and spoke with as a man speaking to his friend, and he saw the back of God, remember the experiences that he had of God's glory, and yet he feared the power of God. And so, looking back even, we gotta be ready to meet God. And so, even more so as we look ahead, and that's what we're gonna do tonight, we're gonna look ahead. And so the second point, the point that we wanna consider as we look ahead, is that you must have your life right with God. Looking back, we understand we need to think right about God, but looking ahead, we wanna consider you must have your life right with God. 1 Corinthians 13 verse 12, For now we see through a glass darkly. but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known. It's like we're looking through dark sunglasses, right? We can kind of see things, but not clearly. Kind of like the blind man that Jesus healed, and Jesus asked him after he healed him, he said, what do you see? And he said, I see men as trees walking, all right? Signifying that he could see things, but he couldn't see it clearly. The Lord did something again, and then he could see clearly, we're kind of like that man. Right now, we've got a little bit of vision. You know, it's like when we got saved, God gave us just kind of a little bit of insight. But there's coming a day we're going to stand and we're going to see God, not through the eye of faith, but through the physical eyes that God has given to us. We're going to gaze upon God in our perfect body, which can handle it. And we're going to see the God of glory. And are we really ready for that opportunity that God's going to give? So you must have your life right with God. You want to be ready. for that day. And so I remind us tonight that you have an appointment in glory. All right, you've got an appointment if you're saved, accepted Jesus Christ as your savior by faith, trusting in his death, his finished work on the cross, his resurrection, receiving him as your savior, then this is what we're speaking about, this opportunity that is there, this appointment in glory. You know, God, again, he's not going to meet us on a flaming mount. He's going to meet us at a place the Bible speaks of as the New Jerusalem. And so you're going to enter into that heavenly city the Bible speaks about, that New Jerusalem, that idea that we have of heaven that is the New Jerusalem. And so the Bible speaks about it in verse 22. It says, But ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. Okay, there isn't an earthly Jerusalem. I've been there. There's a heavenly Jerusalem. It hasn't come yet. It's coming. The Bible speaks about it in Revelation 21. And if you want, you can turn there. I'm going to read a kind of a lengthy segment from this passage. So the back of your Bible, if you'd like to turn there. Revelation 21 verse 2. It says, I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband. Okay? Jesus said what? I go to prepare a place for you, right? And so there's a prepared place that is going to come down, prepared like a bride, adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, behold, the tabernacle of God is with men. and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people. And God himself shall be with them and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, nor shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away. And I mean, you start reading this passage, it ought to get you a little bit excited. I have difficulty at times relating to some of the concepts of what's to come. We can't fully understand it, but I can relate to the idea of no sin. I can relate to the idea of no disappointment, no sorrow, no death, no pain. I can relate to those ideas and I can get pretty excited about that. But look down at verse 16. It says that the city lieth four square, and the length is as large as the breadth. So it's square, and it's actually cubed. And he measured the city with the reed, 12,000 furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal. So either it's a pyramid with equal sides or equal lengths, or it's a cube. But it's 1,500 miles or 1,400 miles by square miles. So every direction, including up. And if you put it on top of the United States, I saw a drawing of it this past week, it takes up half the United States and it goes up into Canada. It's amazingly large. And it's just a reminder that there's plenty of room for anybody in God's heavenly city. It's amazing, this city that God is making. And he measured the wall, there are 144 cubits, verse 17, that's 216 feet. according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel. And the building of the wall of it was jasper, and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass. And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones, and it lists the foundations of precious stone after precious stone after precious stone that God builds this city with. And the city was pure gold, as it was transparent glass. In verse 22, And I saw a new temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither the moon, to shine in it, for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. So God is light. We've studied this as a family. We're just into 1 John in our readings in the morning. God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. And that illumination, of God is going to be there. We're not going to need to turn the lights on. The light will be on. The light is God himself. Now in Moses, Old Testament, right, we're talking about Moses seeing God and God's glory, but as he saw God at the burning bush, that appearance of, you know, of God as there's the burning of that bush, you know, God says to him, what? Take thy shoes off, Moses. You're on holy ground. And so we have to stop to think tonight, is my life with God so right that I'm ready to enter into that sacred place, that holy place, that eternal place with God? You're gonna enter the new Jerusalem. You're gonna see the heavenly host as you enter into that city. It says, into an innumerable company of angels. Verse 22 in our text, Hebrews chapter 12. An innumerable company of angels. God is the Lord of hosts. He has incredible servants. And we don't worship angels. So a lot of times maybe we diminish angels. We don't speak a lot as a church about angels and things. But when you read the Bible, the angels of God are throughout it. I think a lot of times Satan would like us to think of angels as the world thinks about fairies. It's just kind of a fairy story idea. The world likes to kind of dress up these little images of angels and whatnot. These angels are incredibly powerful and they are very real servants of God. When we studied Genesis we came across angels with Jacob as Jacob was in Bethel, the place he would name Bethel, the house of God. He had a dream. It says in Genesis 28 verse 12, I think it just speaks of the activity between heaven and earth. You know, there's something taking place that is in the unseen realm. We're not aware of it, but it's very active there because these are the messengers of God doing God's bidding. Jesus, the Bible speaks about angels with Jesus. At his birth, Hebrews 1 verse 6, again, when he bringeth the first begotten into the world, he saith, and let all the angels of God worship him. Okay, he comes into this earth, and all of a sudden you have glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men, and the mighty angels there, you know, breaking through and praising God. Luke 15 verse 10, Jesus said, likewise I say unto you, there's joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repented. We prayed about this in our prayer time. How amazing, one person gets saved and heaven resounds. I mean, here we are, Free Baptist Church, this location, and to think that one person trusts Christ and that it impacts glory, that these angels are praising God for that person. Matthew 26 53 Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father? He shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels. growing up, often lived by professional baseball stadiums. It just happened to be the way it was. We lived by the Brewers Stadium, Milwaukee. I could go see Brewers games. We lived out in California for a little while by the Oakland A's Stadium. And then I basically grew up near the Twins Stadium in Minneapolis. And these are large stadiums. But I think, Katie, if I'm not mistaken, the largest stadium is actually the University of Michigan. And I don't know if you've been there. I think you've been there and I think that's a hundred and I want to say 110,000 something like that that can be in that stadium. That's a lot of people. I've been to the Iowa State Fair. I've been to the Minnesota State Fair and they count the crowd that comes in there. But I mean, it's just a massive crowd that's there, but it's numberable if that's a word. All right, numberable. This is innumerable. And so as you enter again into glory, what you're gonna see is a host of angels that are just as far as the eye can see. It's a massive army of God's servants that are there. You're gonna see the heavenly host. You're gonna attend the real General Assembly. It says in verse 23, to the General Assembly and Church of the Firstborn, which are written, in heaven. I'm calling this a real general simile, I'll tell you why in a second, but these are believers from Old Testament, Adam and Eve, right up through the kings and the judges and everything up to the time of Christ and then beyond that. Everybody of all ages that is a child of God that has by faith received imputed righteousness from God is gonna be there in that place. I imagine, I'm pretty sure about this, the Church of Scotland likely took their General Assembly title from this passage. They refer to their ruling body that governs the Church of Scotland as the General Assembly. They meet once a year, they make laws, religious laws for their congregations and whatnot, and have authority in that way. But I wanna say this about that General Assembly, There's false teachers that are present at that General Assembly. They deny the truth of God's word. We've seen that in recent decisions that they've made. There's false legislators. They legislate against God's word. There's false ministers and elders just like Thomas Chalmers that was in the Church of Scotland. Before his conversion at 30 years of age, praise God, he got saved and became a great man of God within the Church of Scotland, then came out free Church of Scotland during the disruption. But mighty man of God, but unsaved in that assembly, that general assembly. We can say this about any religion, I use it about that because they use the title General Assembly, but in that General Assembly there is a lot that is not a part of this future and massive General Assembly. So in that General Assembly there would be no denominational titles. There'll be no tares with the wheat. There'll be no goats with the sheep, but it's just gonna be that assembly of those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. So importantly for us, and obviously we're speaking to believers, but importantly for us is am I gonna be there? Am I present there? I mean, just stop and think about this. In a sense, it already exists because it's eternal. Is my name there, written in that book, or is my name blotted out of that book that God has of those that are his children, bought by the blood, in our case, of the Lord Jesus Christ? You know what's neat about it? If you're saved, you've got a prepared place there. Jesus said, I go to prepare a place for you. And I like what God said to Daniel. Daniel 12 verse 13 says, go thy way to the end be, for thou shalt rest and stand in thy lot at the end of the days. There's a specific place. That's where you're gonna be Daniel. It's okay. Just get ready. It's coming. And it's encouraging to us as believers to think, you know what, there's a prepared place for me there, and praise God for that. But it's gonna be the real general assembly, that masses of assembly of God's people. Then you're gonna face the judge of all. It says, and to God, the judge of all. As you enter, we've studied this before, God has committed all judgment, the Father has committed all judgment unto the Son. And so Jesus Christ is that judge that we're gonna stand before and I've never had a court date, all right? The closest I've come is getting chosen for jury duty, but because of what I do, they released me from jury duty. I've never really been in an active courtroom that I recall. But I can't imagine what it'd be like, you know, you're there, you're standing before the judge, and the judge has ultimate authority over your future. I mean, he's got it all right there in his hand. The judge is going to judge you according to the law, because we can't have injustice. So he's going to judge according to what it says in the law. The judge is a person that I'm summoned to appear before. I don't have a choice. I can't say, well, you know, I just rather not. I'm kind of busy or anything like that. When it's time to go before the judge, I have to go before the judge, and the judge I've got to be prepared when I stand before him to say guilty or not guilty. And when you think about this appointment that we have, we're going to stand before the judge of all. He's the ultimate judge. And again, he's the judge that has authority, not just over my life, but over my eternity. He's the ultimate judge. He's the judge that's going to judge me by his perfect law. It's not going to be the edited version that man would like to hand out and say, here's the edited version of the Bible. It's going to be the full and unfettered truth of the word of God that's going to be released against us. Someday soon, everybody's going to be summons. It's appointed to man once to die, but after that, the judgment. And I'm either a guilty sinner or a not guilty sinner, right? We're all sinners, but I'm either a guilty sinner that God's gonna say, depart from me, cursed in everlasting fire, or I'm a sinner saved by grace that the blood is applied, that by the mercy of God, I am pardoned. But regardless, we've got an appointment in glory. And again, this is speaking to believers that someday, we're gonna stand at the judgment seat of Christ that we're gonna receive according to what we've done with our life, either rewards or no rewards based on that. You know, am I really prepared for that day? That day is coming soon. You know, am I really ready to, is my life right with God? I'm ready today to say, yeah, I'm ready to enter into that place and to give an account to God. And then as you do this, you're gonna enter into a perfect environment. It says, and to the spirits of just men, just means justified, declared righteous, just men, but made perfect. We can still sin in this life, having been saved by the grace of God, having been declared righteous by the grace of God. We can still say, but God is gonna perfect us in glory, and it is a perfect place that we're gonna enter into. There is no sin there. I don't know about you, but I like to be clean, to go into a clean environment. You know you don't want to really enter into a place that's clean, unclean. I've shared before about in high school I had the opportunity to go to the Boundary Waters and that area between northern United States and Canada and we just enter by canoe and we had two canoes, we had 4 packs of 70 pounds. A lot of that was food for the week that we were in there and just camping for a week. We didn't have access to hot water. or showers. I think we tried with the lakes that we had to try to get cleaned up. You know, but we were very dirty. We came out of there having not shaved for all those days. And I remember distinctly going and emphasis on stink probably, but going into a restaurant and just sensing, you know what, I think our group may be a little bit ripe, you know, and just not quite fitting into the cleanliness of this environment. You know, we want to be clean, to enter into something that is clean. You know, I want to say to us tonight, just as a reminder of the grace of God and the power of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, that by the grace of God, when we enter into that perfect place, that we will be perfect by the grace of God. That God is going to change us from this corruptible to something that is incorruptible. 1 Corinthians 15, 53 says, a corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. Praise God that is coming. He is going to take all our filth away. But you know, I'd say this to us today, God wants us to deal with the sin now. It's going to happen, by God's grace, God is going to fully purify us before we enter into that holy place, but that God desires us to live a sanctified life now. Jesus said this in Ephesians 5, verse 27, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. And again, praise God for the power of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that can cleanse us from sin so that we can be right with God now. But there's coming a day, and that day will be it. We'll enter into a perfect place. And then you're going to see the real sacrifice. It says in verse 24, It says, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. Okay. All right. So Paul takes time, he kind of pauses here again, and he's looking back again. He's looking back to, I mean, way back to the beginning. This time he's going past the Levitical priesthood. He's going right back to the beginning. The sacrifice that God accepted, the first sacrifice the Bible speaks about that God accepted, and that's the sacrifice of Abel, a blood sacrifice. That sacrifice, as we know, pictured Jesus Christ. But that sacrifice was not Jesus Christ. That sacrifice was just a lamb. The sacrifice that's there for us, praise God, is the Son of God, the real sacrifice, that is Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant. It's the Lord Jesus Christ, that Lamb of God that was crucified for us, that walked into the presence of God with his blood that he shed for us and that he poured out for us there before God as our atonement. Abel's sacrifice just pictured that, but the point is this, God accepted that. So how much more does God accept the anti-type of the type? That which the type pictured, the Jesus Christ dying for us. You know, the Bible says in Revelation 5 verse 6, it says, And I beheld in the midst of the throne of the four beasts in the midst of the elders stood a lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. In Revelations, you're looking into glory. You see the Son of God and His image is that of a sacrificed lamb. And again, tonight, are we ready to see our Savior who died for us? There was a stroke victim that I saw in the news this past week. I had a stroke. He was sitting on a park bench or something like that. He looked like he was drunk. His face was, you know, kind of slid sideways a little bit. His speech was slurred. He couldn't cry out for help. But a nurse walked by, saw him and understood that it was a stroke. She called the paramedics. She told the paramedics what to do. She told the paramedics where to go to take him to the right hospital. Because of that, they saved his life. And this man was putting out a request. He wanted to meet the angel. And it was kind of neat, they said within a day of that story going out to the BBC, his family was able to connect with this lady, to personally thank her because she had so impacted their life. It's us seeing the God that sacrificed his son so that we could have life. Seeing the son who died for us, are we really ready to enter into that place? And you think about the debt, the sense of debt that we have. Is my life really right with God? And so tonight, as we think about that, you think about entering into the new Jerusalem, the incredible company of angels, the general assembly of the church of all ages that is there, the judge of all, that we're gonna stand before and give an account, the blood of that judge sacrificed for us. He's the judge, he's the high priest, he's the sacrifice, everything that he did. Tonight, am I really ready to stand before God? And I think in all of our hearts tonight, there ought to be a sense that, you know what? I sure could do a lot better. I certainly think there's things I need to scrutinize in my life going back to the beginning of the chapter that speaks about set aside the weights, set aside the sin, get ready for God's chastening. You're in this battle. There's these great men of God that have gone before and all that's preparatory for this. You know what? You are gonna meet God, not back there in the Old Testament. You're gonna meet God in the future in the glorious place of the everlasting life. Are you ready? And so tonight you know what we need to realize is I need to have my life right with God. It could be there's somebody tonight that might hear this message even and realize that they're not saved. They don't have the blood. They don't have Jesus Christ. You know, tonight would be a great night to get on your knees and say, God, I wanna get saved. I'm not prepared to go to that, to face God. And certainly I'm not going to that place that I need to go to. But then for us as believers to say, you know what, by God's grace, I wanna be right with God. May God help us to do that. Let's pray and ask God to bless his word to our heart this evening. Father, we thank you for the grace that you give. Father, I pray that the Spirit of God help us as believers to say, you know what, we need revival. We need to be living as if this could happen tonight. Father, that we could enter into that place of the New Jerusalem and see the awesomeness of glory. Father, there's some things that we're going to consider next week with regard to that, that we're going to, we need to look at and marvel at. But Father, what an amazing thing to think that we get to go there. But Father, we're gonna stand and see that amazing church. We're gonna see our amazing Savior and judge. And Father, I praise you for his blood. And I praise you for your cleansing. And Father, we just thank you tonight for what's ahead of us. No more tears, no more sorrow, no more sin. And Father, we look forward to that day. May the spirit of God bless his word to our hearts tonight. It's in Christ's name we pray, amen. Amen, all right, we'll say goodbye to those that are watching online. Turn that off.