Hebrews 12:25-29

Tomorrow, 8/18, we leave for a two week trip to attend Patty's 50th high school reunion in Peoria, IL. I leave the following which I ran across this morning while going through the book. Would to God that every person in this world could read this and recognize the seriousness of living this life with eternity in mind.

I have a saying posted in my office that reads: "The awesome importance of this life is that it determines eternity."

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All things may pass away; the world as we know it may be uprooted; life as we experience it may come to an end; but one thing stands eternally sure—the relationship of the Christian to God.

If that be so there is a great obligation laid upon us. We must worship God with reverence and serve him with fear; for nothing must be allowed to disturb that relationship which will be our salvation when the world passes away. So the writer to the Hebrews finishes with one of those threatening quotations which he so often flings like a thunderbolt at his readers. It is a quotation from Deuteronomy 4: 24. Moses is telling the people that they must never break their agreement with God and relapse into idolatry. For he is a jealous God. They must worship him alone or they will find him a consuming fire. it is as if the writer to the Hebrews was saying: “There is a choice before you. Remain steadfastly true to God, and in the day when the universe is shaken into destruction your relationship with him will stand safe and secure. Be false to him and that very God who might have been your salvation will be to you a consuming fire of destruction.”

It is a grim thought; but in it there is the eternal truth that, if a man is true to God, he gains everything and, if he is untrue to God, he loses everything. In time and in eternity nothing really matters save loyalty to God.

From William Barclay “The Letter to the Hebrews” Ref. Hebrews 12:25-29, Page 189