Well let’s take our Bibles together and turn to the Book of Hebrews. We are continuing our series, “Christ Supreme in All Things,” and today, I have a chance to talk about some of my favorite things in the world—mountains. I love mountains. The Title of Today’s Message is “Twin Peaks: Choose Your Mountain.” Is it going to be Mount Sinai? Or is it going to be Mount Zion?

In the winter of 1806, there was this intrepid explorer and military man named Zebulon Pike, who found his way into the Rocky Mountains. He was traveling with a band of explorers, and he came across one of the largest mountains in North America at the southern front range of the Rocky Mountains, in what is now Colorado. And Pike and his men decided to climb that 14,115 foot peak in the dead of winter! Needless to say they failed, and honestly they were lucky to survive such a foolish misadventure. 

Supposedly Pike said after his failure that no one would ever be able to climb that mountain, which was later named “Pikes Peak” after him. If so, that was a ridiculous assertion. Because today there’s a highway that takes you to the top of Pikes Peak and thousands of people ascend to the top of that mountain every year. There’s even a marathon that runs up Pikes Peak. But I read recently that Pike didn’t say “nobody would ever ascend this mountain,” he said instead that no one could climb it under the same conditions that he had. And that’s probably true. 

There’s a similar incident in John Bunyan’s book Pilgrim’s Progress when Christian gets steered off-course from the celestial city, leading to Mount Zion, and instead he takes another mountain. He ascends a Mount Sinai-esque hill in order to find a man named Mr. Legality in the city of Morality. But the more he tries to ascend the hill, the more he realizes that he will never make it to the top. And at times, he feels like the mountain itself will fall on top of him. In the midst of his travels, he comes across a man named Evangelist, who rebukes him and gets him back on the path to Mount Zion. 

Now here’s the situation in the book of Hebrews. The author of this book is writing to a group of Jewish Christians in the first century. And some of these Jews are being tempted to turn back to the religion of their childhood and forsake Christ and the new covenant that Christ established. Their reasoning is understandable. They are being persecuted as Christians, and they are being ostracized even from their Jewish communities. It’s tough to be a Christian in the first century Roman Empire! And so they are essentially trading away the goodness of Christ and their eternal hope for the familiarity and the comfort of their pre-Christ religion. They’re trading Zion for Sinai.

And the author of Hebrews is telling them here to choose their mountain. Choose today whom you will serve. Are you going to choose the unascendable Mount Sinai that will only lead to conviction of sin and death? Or are you going to choose Mount Zion, the place where Christ was crucified and buried and raised from the dead? And more than that, this Mount Zion, this heavenly Jerusalem, is the place where we will live with God forever in eternity. Not so, Mount Sinai!

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We’ll talk more in a moment about Mount Zion. But let’s start where this text starts with Mount Sinai. Write this down as #1 in your notes. 

1) Mount Sinai is the symbol of God’s holy judgment (12:18-21)

The author of Hebrews writes,

18 For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest 

Last week, we talked about Esau, this oafish individual who traded something precious, his birthright, for a bowl of stew. He traded something intangible for something tangible. And that’s the link here. 

The author of Hebrews says, 

18 For you have not come to what may be touched,

For you have not come to embrace the tangible, but the intangible. Mount Sinai was a real mountain in the wilderness that they could see and touch. They might die if they touch it, but they could still touch it. 

18 For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest 19 and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. 

When Moses was leading the Israelites in the wilderness, they traveled through the desert. They crossed the Red Sea. And they came to the base of this mountain, this volcano-like peak that absolutely terrified them. It was a kind of OT theophany, where God came down and manifested himself in their presence. And there was blazing fire, darkness, gloom, and a tempest (a storm). 

And the book of Exodus records this, and it says that when God spoke, his voice thundered and horror struck the people. This is Exodus 19, just before Moses received the Ten Commandments from the Lord. “On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder” (19:16-19; see also Deut 4:11; 5:22-23). 

Later, in chapter 20 after Moses came down from Sinai, it reads, “Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and said to Moses, ‘You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die’” (20:18-19; see also Deut 5:24-27). God intentionally presented himself this way to the Israelites, because he wanted them to grasp his power and might and be afraid to sin. Moses says in Exodus 20:20, “God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” 

The author of Hebrews writes in verse 20,

20 For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” 

That’s true. Exodus 19 says, “Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death... whether beast or man, he shall not live” (19:12-13). And look at verse 21.

21 Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” 

Even fearless Moses, the “friend of God” was afraid. Even Moses who spoke face to face with God (Exod 33:11) trembled before him. Even Moses, who later asked to see God in all his glory, was quaking with trepidation. Moses was the mediator between God and the people. The people were so terrified of God, that they asked God to speak to Moses and not directly to them. So Moses got the privilege of communicating on behalf of God to the people. But that didn’t assuage his anxiety at Sinai. Even he trembled with fear (cf. Deut 9:18-19)!

And why is the author of Hebrews delving into this subject matter in the OT? Why is he emphasizing God’s terror-inducing qualities? I think it’s two-fold. He’s reminding them of the futility of trying to appease the God of the OT through good works or Jewish religiosity. [He’s reminding us of that too!]. Obedience to God’s law didn’t work for the OT Israelites. It’s not going to work for these NT Jews. They need a Savior! [We do too!] They need a Messiah. They need a better mediator than Moses to assuage the God of the Universe! Moses did his best, but it wasn’t good enough. And the law that Moses received at Sinai doesn’t have salvific power. It has the power to point out our sin and show us that we are sinners. But it doesn’t have the power to save us. 

And the second thing he’s doing is he’s creating a compelling contrast. The God of Sinai is a make-you-quake-in-your boots, terror-inducing God! He’s a God that will strike you dead if you step out of line. If you try to approach God via Sinai, through your good works and your obedience to the law, you won’t make it up that mountain. In fact, you can’t even touch that mountain without getting struck dead. Mount Zion, on the other hand… Well, that’s a different story.  

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Go ahead and write this down as #2. Let’s explore this contrast. 

1) Mount Sinai is the symbol of God’s holy judgment (12:18-21)

2) Mount Zion is the eternal home of the redeemed (12:22-24)

Look at verse 22 with me. 

22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering,

Mount Sinai was touchable and terrifying. Mount Sinai (wherever it is now!) is part of the world as it presently exists. But Mount Zion is heavenly not earthly. It’s not touchable (not yet!) and it’s not terrifying. It’s awesome; but it’s not terror-inducing. It’s the city of the living God, and those who live there, like the angels, are in a state of perpetual celebration. Al Mohler states it this way, “God’s people no longer identify with the place that God’s law was given [Sinai], but with the place that God’s law was fulfilled [Zion].” And that’s because Jesus perfectly fulfilled the law on our behalf. Before Jesus, we were like Zebulon Pike trying to ascend Pikes Peak in our own power. But Jesus has put a highway over that mountain called “Christ’s Cross,” and now we can ascend that mountain through him.  

By the way, Zion was a hill on the southeast part of the ancient city of Jerusalem. And the terms “Zion” and “Jerusalem” are used interchangeably throughout the OT (e.g. Joel 2:32; Amos 1:2; Mic. 4:2). Jerusalem was the ancient Jebusite city that David captured and made into his capital city. 2 Samuel 5 describes it this way. “And the king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, who said to David, ‘You will not come in here, but the blind and the lame will ward you off’—thinking, ‘David cannot come in here.’ Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion, that is, the city of David” (5:6-7). So, from this point forward, “Zion, the city of David” and “Jerusalem” are two names for the same location.

But the reference here isn’t to the ancient city of Jerusalem or even to the current city of Jerusalem in modern-day Israel. That city was and still is “touchable.” This is a reference to the eternal city of Jerusalem, the so-called “New Jerusalem” in Revelation 21, the place that Jesus has gone to prepare for us (John 14:2).  

John writes in Revelation 21:1-4, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” 

Later in that same chapter, John writes, “And [the angel] carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed—on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb” (21:10-14).

That passage goes on to describe the splendor and the glory of what theologians call “The Eternal State.” And this New Jerusalem, this heavenly Mount Zion, is our eternal home, if we belong to Jesus Christ not the Judaism of old. And by the way, there’s a sense in which we already have come to this. Look at the beginning of verse 22. 

22 But you have come to Mount Zion

That “have come” language is a perfect tense verb of the Greek προσέρχομαι. There’s a sense in which this is a done deal. You have already come to Mount Zion, even though we know that eternity and the eternal state still awaits the future. Who knows, maybe we’ll get a sneak-peak at this New Jerusalem and the eternal state once we die and go home to glory? 

And let me just build a contrast for you here. There’s Sinai and there’s Zion. Choose your mountain. There’s a mountain of gloom and doom, and there’s a mountain of rhapsody and redemption. Below is a table created by the commentator Phillip Hughes that details seven contrasts between Sinai and Zion. 

MOUNT SINAI

MOUNT ZION

“What may be touched”

1. “the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem”

“a blazing fire”

2. “innumerable angels in festal gathering”

“darkness”

3. “the assembly of the first-born …”

“gloom”

4. “a judge who is God of all”

“a tempest”

5. “the spirits of just men made perfect”

“the sound of a trumpet”

6. “Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant”

“a voice …”

7. “the sprinkled blood …”

There are similarities between the mountains too. Notice God speaks from both. God’s presence is found on both. And both mountains have a mediator. You got Moses for Sinai and you got Jesus for Zion. But here’s the big difference: Sinai triggers terror. It’s like the description of a horror movie in verses 18-21. Zion, instead, is a party. It’s a manifestation of joy. 

Look at verse 22 again. The angels are having a party with their “festal gathering.” I want to be on that mountain! And look at verse 23.

23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven,

Who are the firstborn and what is this assembly? Well, that word “firstborn” is plural in the Greek. And that’s confusing. How can you have multiple firstborns? The idea here is that we, who are connected to Christ, are by proxy considered the firstborn children of God. We have an inheritance with God, and we are enrolled in heaven as the sons of God. Our names are written in the Lamb’s book of Life (Rev 21:27). Those who have passed are already gathered before God in heaven. And we shall join them when we die. 

We have come to Mount Zion, to the assembly of the firstborn…

and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 

The spirits of the righteous made perfect is another reference to the firstborn. These are those who have been perfected and made righteous in Christ. 

By the way, those who are in heaven are disembodied spirits for the time being. They are awaiting a future resurrection and a future incorruptible body. When Christ returns, the dead in Christ will rise first (see 1 Thess 4:13-18). They will receive their bodies, and then a fraction of a second later those who remain on earth will likewise be translated into new bodies. We will shed these old bodies like a snake sheds its skin. And we will be clothed immortal. That day is coming. 

And there is this already/not-yet tension throughout this passage. We have come to Mount Zion. But we still await a future resurrection, a future body, a future eternal state in the New Jerusalem. 

And the key to all of this is verse 24. We have come… finally to Jesus. 

24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. 

Amen to that. Jesus is the key to all of this! No Jesus, no new bodies. No Jesus, no Mount Zion. No Jesus, no eternity with God in the Garden of Eden 2.0. 

When Abel died, his blood cried out from the grave. It cried out for vengeance. It cried out for recompense because Abel was wrongly murdered by his own brother. And Cain had to bear that indignity and ignominy for the rest of his life (see Gen 4:1-16).

Jesus’s blood isn’t like that. Yes, Jesus was murdered like Abel. But his blood doesn’t cry out for vengeance. It cries out “mercy.” It doesn’t seek retribution. Jesus’s blood is the retribution! It’s payment for sin. Therefore Jesus’s blood speaks a better word, it speaks mercy and grace and forgiveness and redemption. 

Tell me if you’ve heard this before, church: 

There is a fountain filled with blood

Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;

And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,

Lose all their guilty stains.

E’er since by faith I saw the stream

Thy flowing wounds supply,

Redeeming love has been my theme,

And shall be till I die.

Or tell me if you’ve heard this before, church: 

When I survey the wondrous cross

on which the Prince of glory died,

my richest gain I count but loss,

and pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast

save in the death of Christ, my God!

All the vain things that charm me most,

I sacrifice them through his blood.

Or tell me if you’ve heard this before, church: 

What can wash away my sin?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

What can make me whole again?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

O precious is the flow

that makes me white as snow;

no other fount I know;

nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Listen, church. Jesus shed his blood on Calvary, so that you might live in Zion forever with him. Or let me say it this way, I think the author of Hebrews would appreciate this. Jesus shed his blood outside of Jerusalem, so that you might live in the New Jerusalem with him forever. And the New Jerusalem, the heavenly Mount Zion, is the eternal home of the redeemed. One author I read this last week said it this way, “Jesus’ sprinkled blood has silenced Sinai’s terrors and ushered us into his Father’s favor.”

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Now that’s some good news. But let me give you some sobering news to go with it. Go ahead and write this down as #3.

3) Mount Zion rejecters are recipients of God’s wrath (12:25-27) 

Now everything that I’ve said this far has been decidedly dual-optioned. There is Mount Zion, and there is Mount Sinai. It’s a binary. “Twin Peaks: Choose your Mountain.” And someone out there might be looking for a third option. “What about Mount Kilimanjaro, Pastor Tony? Can I choose that mountain?” Listen, let me be absolutely clear on this. There is no third option. There is no middle position. For those who reject Mount Zion, and the free gift of salvation that God gives, you invariably default to Mount Sinai and the wrath and judgment that comes with it.  

The author of Hebrews makes this clear. Look at verse 25. 

25 See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. 

That’s a reference to Jesus and Jesus’s blood. Don’t refuse him who is speaking through it. 

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 here’s a contrast between earth and heaven. And here’s one of those “how much more” (the qal-wahomer) arguments that are so common in Hebrews and elsewhere. If the Israelites in the wilderness did not escape when God warned them, how will those who reject Jesus escape? 

By the way, the “him who warns from heaven” is a reference to Jesus. It’s a reference to the same one who speaks a better word through his blood. And built into this argument is the implicit statement, “If you think God the Father’s wrath was terrifying in the wilderness, wait till you see God the Son’s wrath if you reject him.” And I know how alarming this talk is. We don’t like to think of Jesus as wrathful. We like to think of sweet little baby Jesus in a manger. But that’s not the picture painted here. Psalm 2:12 says “Kiss the Son lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”

Look at the comparison of Sinai and Zion again in verse 26.

26 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.” 27 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. 

At Mount Sinai, God’s voice thundered. The people trembled before him. But it wasn’t just the people. The earth itself trembled. The mountain smoked and quaked. It was a terrifying theophany. And the sense of the text here is, “You think that was scary; you ain’t seen nothing yet. Wait until Christ returns! The earth will shake. The heavens will shake. In fact, everything will shake so that the things that cannot be shaken may remain, namely the New Heavens, the New Earth, the New Jerusalem, and us with our new Resurrection bodies.”  

The book of 2 Peter says this. This is a helpful cross-reference for this passage. “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (3:10-13).

The book of Haggai speaks similarly about this coming “Day of the Lord.” He writes, “For thus says the LORD of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land” (2:6). The author of Hebrews takes that passage from Haggai and he inserts it here. And he does it in such a way that you understand that this all-powerful LORD of hosts (יְהוָ֣ה צְבָאֹ֡ות [Yahweh Tzevaot]), is none other than Jesus Christ. And Jesus will do the speaking. And Jesus will do the shaking. And Jesus will do the terrifying of all the people. No wonder Paul said that every knee will bow down before him (Phil 2:9-11)! And you either heed his voice before this climactic day of reckoning and repent, or you receive his retribution. To not choose is to choose against him. To sit on the fence is to be an eternal recipient of Jesus’s wrath. 

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So finally, write this down as #4. Here’s why you want to be one of those who “have come to Mount Zion.”

4) Mount Zion residents inherit an unshakable kingdom (12:28-29)

To illustrate the unshakable aspect of Christ’s Kingdom, George Guthrie made this “Mudball” once in his backyard. He took one of his son’s marbles and covered it with packed mud till it was nice and large, about the size of a softball. And he left it out in the sun till it baked dry. And afterwards, he took this mudball and shook it and pounded it, till all of that muddy exterior peeled away. And eventually all that was left was that little marble in the center. God is going to do something similar with our world, except he’s going to use heat and fire to dissolve the world. And all that’s going to be left is that marble in the center. All that’s going to be left is Christ’s kingdom, including us, that cannot be shaken.

Look at verse 28.

28 Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, 

Can we all be grateful for that? That favorite four-wheeled vehicle of yours with all the bells and whistles, you can’t take that into eternity. That home you’ve been paying off for the last thirty years, you can’t take that with you. Your 401K will be drained completely. Nothing will go with you except those things that won’t melt with the intense heat of destruction when our world is re-created. 

That’s why Jesus says, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:19-21). People read that and think Jesus was being really ethereal and abstract. He wasn’t. He was just being practical. Why would you waste a lot of time on this earth accumulating things you can’t take with you? 

Paul said similarly (and practically), “We look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Cor 4:18). Paul said also, “For the present form of this world is passing away” (1 Cor 7:31). And let’s not forget the words of Jim Elliot so many years ago, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

“What can we take with us, Pastor Tony? What are those things that are unshakable? Those treasures in heaven?” Well, the Bible speaks of heavenly rewards that are earned in this world now. And you can take those heavenly rewards with you. How that works in eternity, I don’t know. I don’t know if that will be physical crowns and rewards or maybe something more metaphysical like your enjoyment level in heaven. I really don’t know! But I do know that nobody will be disappointed with it. I know nobody will say, “I wish I spent more time at the office, because these heavenly rewards are kind of ‘meh.’” Nobody’s gonna say that.  

Here’s another thing you can take with you to the eternal kingdom. You can take fellow believers with you to heaven! Those people that you share Christ with who get saved, they're coming with. So don’t waste those evangelistic opportunities in the here and now. Don’t waste those because you’re too busy accumulating stuff that’s about to go into a burn bag!

I’ve said this before, but I think it bears repeating. There’s one advantage we have in the here and now over heaven. Heaven is going to be better in every possible way than what we experience now. It’s going to be so much more awesome than we can imagine. But we do have one advantage in the here and now. And this is it. We won’t be able to evangelize in heaven. We won’t be able to lead someone to Christ or baptize a new believer in Christ Jesus. That’ll be settled and done in the New Jerusalem. So let’s make the most of our opportunities now to work for those things that cannot be taken from us. 

28 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, 

Is our God still an awesome God? Yes, he is. There’s not a nice, sweet God of the NT and a mean, angry God of the OT. That is a false dichotomy par excellence! Our God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And our God is a consuming fire.  

29 for our God is a consuming fire. 

There is an ancient heresy called the Marcionite heresy that tried to domesticate the God of the Bible. This guy, Marcion (c. AD 85-160), tried to take out all the “problematic” sections of the OT, the places where God was presented as strong and powerful and wrathful. The problem is, he had sections in the NT he had to excise too. And by the time he was done expunging sections of the Bible, he barely had any Bible left. It was even thinner than Thomas Jefferson’s Bible.

But there’s a better way to think about the God of the Bible. Our God is full of grace, and he’s also full of wrath towards sin. He’s both. He’s perfectly loving and he’s perfectly just. And you can’t extract some aspect of God’s character in order to emphasize another. Our God is a consuming fire. And we are here to offer up to him acceptable worship, with reverence and awe and gratitude.

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Can we do that now? Let’s just bow together in a word of prayer. And let’s express our gratitude to him for saving us from our sin and giving us an eternity with Him.