This article is also available and sold as a booklet.
This sermon series includes the following messages:
The following is an excerpt from The MacArthur New Testament Commentary on Hebrews 12.
See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less shall we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven. (12:25)
After giving the contrasts between Mount Sinai and Mount Zion, the writer says, in effect, “Here is what you must do. You must not ignore Him who is speaking.” “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son” (Heb. 1:1–2). If men were held accountable for heeding God when He warned them on earth, from Mount Sinai, how much more will they be held accountable now that He warns from heaven, from Mount Zion?
The unbelieving Israelites who ignored God at Sinai did not enter the earthly Promised Land, and unbelievers today, Jew or Gentile, who ignore God when He speaks through His Son from Mount Zion will not enter the heavenly promised land. Whether God speaks from Sinai or from Zion, no man who refuses Him will escape judgment.
The blessings of receiving the second covenant are immeasurably greater than those for receiving the first. And the consequences for refusing the second are also immeasurably greater. “Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?” (Heb. 10:28–29).
