Written by B.C. Newton |
Wednesday, November 29, 2023
Only God’s kingdom will endure the dissolving and remaking of the cosmos. As mighty as the kingdoms of earth may seem for the moment, they cannot endure the passage of time, let alone the day of judgment!

See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. At that time his voice shook the earth, but now 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—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.Hebrews 12:25-29 ESV
The book of Leviticus is a fundamentally about worship. Particularly, it is about how a sinful people were to worship the holy and sinless God. The seriousness and solemnity of that privilege is made evident by a brief narrative that is found in chapter 10:1-3:
Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, which he had not commanded them. And fire came out from before the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD. Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the LORD has said: ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.’” And Aaron held his peace.
There is a large tendency among Christians to read such Old Testament passages with great gratitude that God is no longer “like that.” For it is largely believed that Jesus came to put an end to God’s angry phase back in the Old Testament. Of course, we do live under the age of grace, where God’s special grace is being poured out through the gospel across the globe and God’s common grace upon all men has never been more blatant. Our previous passage gave us a marvelous portrait of the far greater grace that we have under the new covenant in Jesus Christ. However, we should not imagine, as many have done, that God’s character has changed between the Old and New Testaments. As the author of Hebrews has pointed out numerous times already, he now warns once more that the unparalleled display of God’s grace goes hand-in-hand with an unparalleled display of His judgment that is still to come.
Do Not Refuse Him Who Is Speaking—Verse 25
In many ways the passage before us is the climax of Hebrews, while chapter 13 is all resolution (to speak in narrative terms). Our previous passage gave us a sevenfold vision of the new covenant that Christians have already entered through the once for all sacrifice of Christ. That mighty revelation paralleled the sevenfold vision Jesus as the divine Son of God in 1:2-3. Now the author continues onward to parallel the very beginning of his sermon-letter, which reads: “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (1:1-2a). Christ is the definitive and perfect Word of God, for unlike any prophet Jesus is the exact imprint of God’s nature. In all His words and deeds but also by His very being, Jesus communicated the nature of God to us.
Yet even though Christ has ascended to the right hand of God the Father after having perfectly accomplished His priestly work of redemption, He has not gone silent. As the author has been showing through this written sermon, God is still speaking by His Son through the Scriptures. Particularly, the author has labored to show how the Old Testament still speaks to us about who Jesus is and of the gospel that He came to accomplish. Indeed, all throughout the letter the author introduces Old Testament citation by saying he says or as the Holy Spirit says. Thus, by the sermon-letter of Hebrews, which is itself Scripture, and by the Old Testament passages that it has quoted, God is speaking to all who read these words. Though it may not seem as spectacular as God’s audible speaking to Israel at Sinai, it is a far greater revelation that we are hearing, and it is imbued with more grace and even an even greater glory.
Thus, we now begin the author’s final warning of the book: See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. This is the same command that the author gave in 3:12, saying, “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.” So we could similarly say here: Take care that you do not refuse him who is speaking. This is a matter worthy of your utmost attention and focus.
In Luke 10:38-42, we read the well-known account of Jesus in the house of two sisters, Mary and Martha. Mary, we are told, sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to His teaching, while “Martha was distracted with much serving” (v. 40). After Martha demanded that Jesus make Mary help her, Jesus simply said this: “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her” (vv. 41-42). This was a loving rebuke to Martha that even serving, as wonderful as that is, is not ultimately necessary. Gladly listening to and knowing Jesus is the one thing in this life that necessary, for it is the good portion that not even death can take away. Martha was failing to receive that good portion because she was too distracted to listen to Jesus.
Notice that the author of Hebrews here indicates that having read or listened to his letter means having heard Christ speak; therefore, if you refuse Him, you are not simply being distracted away from the one thing necessary. You are openly rejecting Him. The remainder of the verse adds to this warning:
For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven.
Again, this is not a new point that the author is making. The new covenant that Christ has inaugurated is marked by great grace that far exceeds the grace that was given through the old covenant; however, the judgment for refusing is also far greater. As 2:2-3 said, “For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?” Or in 10:28-29:
Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of one or two witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?
Indeed, remember the similar phrasing of 10:18 and 10:26. After spending chapters 7-10 describing the priestly work of Christ, the author finished by confirming Jesus’ once for all sacrifice by saying, “Where there is forgiveness of [sins and lawless deeds], there is no longer any offering for sin.” And we cry, “Amen!” Christ has paid it all. He has made the complete and final sacrifice for our sins, so there is nothing more that we need to give or could ever give to make our salvation more secure. Jesus has done it all!!
Yet in 10:26, the author used almost the same wording but put it in a different context: “for if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.” In this verse, the same truth of Christ’s sufficiency takes on a terrifying tone. For if we reject the only sufficient sacrifice for sins, what else remains? To what other hope will we turn when we have rejected the salvation given through the shed blood of the Son of God?
That again is the question that the author sets before us here. If those who refused God’s speaking from Sinai did not escape the judgment that came for them, those who refuse God’s speaking through His Son from Mount Zion will certainly not escape an even greater judgment of God that is still to come.
The Great Shakening—Verses 26-27
In these verses, the author turns his attention upon that coming judgment, using the contrast between earth and heaven as his point of connection:
At that time his voice shook the earth, but now 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–in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.
Briefly the author references the shaking of the earth that marked God’s speaking to Israel at Mount Sinai, but then he quickly moves on to contrast that shaking of the earth with God’s promise in Haggai 2:6 to shake both the earth and the heavens.
 Read More
Related Posts:

Written by B.C. Newton |
Wednesday, February 1, 2023
The act of making our requests known to God is all about surrendering our stress of the unknown and uncontrollable to our all-loving, all-knowing, and all-controlling Father. Prayer is the finite placing confidence in the infinite.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.Philippians 4:6 ESV

Life is one gigantic string of endless possibilities. We all make plans, but none of them are set in stone. Someone may desire to live a long, healthy life as a rich man, only to die young and a pauper. Many things in life are simply outside of our control. No matter how much preparations we make, life will often take completely unexpected turns, for better or worse.
When any of this happens, the natural inclination of the human heart is to become anxious. In some cases, the stresses of life build to such a level that the person actually has an anxiety attack. Fortunately, the Bible is the most applicable book ever written, and it does not forget to deal with such issues as anxiety.
Shockingly, however, the Bible’s answer for anxiety is merely not to be anxious. Most anxiety sufferers would argue that such a response is kind of like telling someone sick with pneumonia to stop being sick. There does not appear to be any rational way to cease being anxious. You cannot simply turn off worry and stress.
Read More
Related Posts:

Written by B.C. Newton |
Tuesday, September 13, 2022
Jesus is unveiling a deeper understanding of the Christ for all who have eyes to see. He is revealing that the Christ will not a great but ultimately lesser imitation of David, as if David’s reign was the very pinnacle for God’s people. No, the coming Son of David would be so great that even His great and Holy Spirit-led ancestor David bowed before Him and called Him Lord. 

And as Jesus taught in the temple, he said, “How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared,
“‘The Lord said to my Lord,“Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.”’
David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son?” And the great throng heard him gladly.
And in his teaching he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”
And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”Mark 12:35-44 ESV

While the early church began to grow and thrive in Jerusalem following Pentecost, it certainly was met with many challenges. Perhaps the most pervasive challenge was the opposition of the religious leaders. Just as Jesus warned, they hated the apostles with the same beastly vitriol that they had aimed at Christ. In Acts 5, the high priest and the Sadducees arrested the apostles and brought them before the Sanhedrin to give an account as to why they continued to preach about Jesus. Peter answered:
We must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.VV. 29-32
As this answer, the members of the council were ready to kill the apostles, but a Pharisee on the council named Gamaliel gave a word of caution. He recounted for them two would-be Messiahs who gathered a large number of followers but were killed and their followers dispersed. His advice was then:
So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!”VV. 38-39
After being beaten, the apostles were released and rejoiced “that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name” (v. 41). Indeed, rather than silencing Jesus’ disciples, the threats of the rulers only caused them to proclaim Christ all the more boldly. Over the next several decades, the words of Gamaliel proved true. The Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes tried to crucify the news of Jesus’ resurrection just like they once crucified Him, yet they could not suppress the work of God. For all their schemes, they were placed under Christ’s feet as His steadily built His church by the power of His Spirit as He sat enthroned at the right hand of the Father.
A Question for the Questioners: Verses 35–37
Now that we have read Christ’s responses to four questions from the religious leaders (three being hostile and one sincere), the conclusion of chapter twelve gives us three distinct passages that build upon one another and upon everything that has come before. In this first passage (verses 35-37), Jesus goes on the offensive by presenting His own question. We are not told that Jesus directed this question toward a particular group, whether the scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, etc. Instead, the text simply read, “And as Jesus taught in the temple…” Thus, this seems to be a generally proposed question, yet given the business of the religious leaders in the temple, I think we can still rightly read the point of this question being aimed at them.
Here is Jesus’ question:
How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared,
‘The Lord said to my Lord,“Sit at my right hand,until I put your enemies under your feet.”‘
David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son?
The main premise of this question centers upon the understanding of the Christ (or Messiah) being the son or descendent of David. The root of this belief is 2 Samuel 7:12-16, where God promised a son with an eternal throne to come from David. And that great promise is reiterated in various ways throughout the Scriptures (Psalm 132 being one of the most explicit). Thus, the scribes as students and teachers of God’s law were correct in this belief that the Christ would be the son of David. And let us remember that even Bartimaeus had received some teaching of this great hope.
Thus, Jesus is in no way denying that He is descendent of David; instead, His question revealed new depths that their understanding had failed to see. To probe these depths, Jesus cited Psalm 110:1, where David speaks of two persons, both called Lord. In the Old Testament, we find that the two ‘Lords’ look a bit different with the first being entirely capitalized and the second having only the first letter capitalized. This is to reflect that two different words are used in Hebrew. The first LORD is Yahweh, the holy and personal name of God, that is often translated as LORD because it was a common practice for later Jews to say Adonai (Lord) when reading instead of Yahweh. Thus, the first person, the first Lord, is Yahweh Himself, the Maker of heaven and earth. The second Lord is Adonai in Hebrew. R. C. Sproul notes that:
In most cases in the Old Testament, Adonai is the supreme title of Yahweh. It means “the One who is absolutely Sovereign.” This is why we sometimes find the words LORD and Lord back-to-back in Scripture. For example, in Psalm 8 we read, “O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth” (v. 1a). This text literally reads, “O Yahweh, our Adonai.” It is saying, “O Yahweh, our Sovereign One, how excellent is your name.”[1]
Thus, Psalm 110 reads, “Yahweh says to my Adonai…” Thus, we have David, Israel’s greatest king, not only submitting to Yahweh but also to another person, an even greater sovereign. Who such a person be, except the coming Messiah? Thus, we have Jesus’ question: how could David’s son also be David’s Lord?
The question goes unanswered, in some ways, because it was not meant to be answered. Jesus is not inviting a theological debate here. That is not the goal of His question. Instead, Jesus is unveiling a deeper understanding of the Christ for all who have eyes to see. He is revealing that the Christ will not a great but ultimately lesser imitation of David, as if David’s reign was the very pinnacle for God’s people. No, the coming Son of David would be so great that even His great and Holy Spirit-led ancestor David bowed before Him and called Him Lord. The Christ would not just be like David; He would be the greater David.
This, therefore, primarily (though subtly) served as a rebuke and warning to the religious leaders that sought to destroy Jesus. For if Jesus truly was the Christ, then they would be guilty of playing the role of Saul, seeking to destroy David in the wilderness. Saul was certainly allowed to humble David for a season, yet the LORD ultimately disposed of him and exalted David in his place. In the same way, the religious leaders would be allowed to war against Christ for a season and even to kill Him, yet He would ultimately rise again and ascend to the right hand of the Father to rule as His enemies are placed under His feet.
Thus, this question is Jesus warning the religious leaders that their opposition toward Him is an opposition to God. It was a promise that they could not ultimately destroy Him and, in attempting to do so, would be destroyed themselves.
But even while no one dared answer or question Jesus anymore, “the great throng heard him gladly.” Matthew Henry rightly notes however:
Read More
Related Posts:

Written by B.C. Newton |
Tuesday, September 6, 2022
Even as we rightly aim to destroy demonic ideologies, we should labor to make it known that Christ calls those ensnared within them to come in repentance of their sin and find life and joy in Him.

I have said once or twice that the Woke and LGBT ideology is a present manifestation of the spirit of the antichrist. And I double down on that belief, for time has only continued to unveil its beastliness.
Yet while the culture war continues to rage, I would like to very briefly ask my brothers and sisters in Christ to poke our heads above the fray of headlines and to consider the years ahead and how they might impact our actions today.
First, although society at large has apparently decided to treat 2 Timothy 3:1-7 as a list of aspirations, we should take comfort that every little horn is eventually cast down. Every Ashurbanipal is eventually slain. Every Nebuchadnezzar is eventually humbled. Every Antiochus is eventually disemboweled. Every Herod is eventually eaten with worms. The King of kings will not allow His glory and truth to be thrown to the ground and trampled forever. Therefore, every ruler or ideology that places itself directly against the Most High will be defeated. And that certainly goes for the Woke ideology that promotes as virtuous the slaughter of babies, the butchering and neutering of the children, and the mockery of marriage. Such a blatant rebellion against God’s will and design cannot stand forever.
We must believe that truth, difficult as it may be while in the midst of the beast’s reign. While drug traffickers being allowed to confess openly on social media without repercussions because they now belong to the sacred class and the exponential yearly increases of those who identify as being LGBT may make it seem like the contest of worldviews has already been decided, we should meditate on God’s Word and remember that this Babel shall also be brought down. Indeed, Wokeism must eventually be seen for the vanity that it truly is and for the societal regression that its “progress” is creating. And as the enchantment of the devil is broken, the body of Christ must be ready to do what our Lord Himself modeled: lead weary sinners to the Living Water.
Read More
Related Posts: