…Since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire. Hebrews 12:28, 29
The voice of the Lord is described many times as that which shakes. When the Lord speaks from His holy habitation, not through man but directly to man, not in the still small voice of gentle guidance but in the fierceness of His holy array it is as the sound of many waters and that which breaks up the deep.
Psalm 29:3-9 describes the Lord’s voice,
The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders; the LORD is over many waters. The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is full of majesty. The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars, yes, the LORD splinters the cedars of Lebanon. He makes them also skip like a calf, Lebanon and Sirion like a young wild ox. The voice of the LORD divides the flames of fire. The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness; the LORD shakes the Wilderness of Kadesh. The voice of the LORD makes the deer give birth, and strips the forests bare; and in His temple everyone says, “Glory!”
In the book of Exodus when the Lord spoke from Mount Sinai to the children of Israel the earth shook and trembled. The people, including Moses were filled with fear because of the voice and the commandment of the Lord. They could not bear the holy, unadulterated Presence of God so they asked that Moses be the Mediator between them and God. (Exodus 19 and 20) But under the New Covenant Jesus is the Mediator of our faith and has put His Spirit in us so that we can bear to be in this Presence.
The writer of Hebrews says to the New Covenant believer,
For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. (For they could not endure what was commanded: “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.”[ And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.” But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. Hebrews 12:18-24
Now, after the first shaking the Lord says to us, the New Covenant church, that He will again not only shake earth but heaven also. Why? Because we the church have a placed fixed in heaven where the carnal part of us cannot stand.
Hebrews 12:26-28 says, “’Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.’ Now this, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.”
Things that are made are created things like humanity and things having to do with our humanity thing, these can be shaken. Things that are not made are eternal such as Christ, which is why the writer of Hebrews speaks of the Kingdom of God as that which cannot be shaken. This is because God’s kingdom is eternal, also anything pertaining to His kingdom cannot be shaken. These are the promises of God, the Word of God, and anything done for God that He directs us to do.
Paul said,
Each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. 1 Corinthians 3:13-15
Beloved, all things will be shaken when God dressed in holy array arises with the voice of fire, which justice and judgment. Whatever is not fixed in Him will be shaken loose from the establishment of God, in earth and heaven. Therefore, fix yourself in Him, and serve Him by grace with reverence and godly fear.
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