R1299 A Long Walk to Mount Zion

I think what God wanted us to know is the essential ingredient for a person who walks with God is the issue of spiritual discernment. It's being able to evaluate and see life through God's eyes and not through our own being able to raise our sons and daughters through God's eyes. It's it's the ability to be able to lead people from God's perspective. The ability to be able to analyze the world regards, it's what we stand for.

We would love to encourage you and we believe the great source of that encouragement is the Bible itself, God's Encouraging Word at our speaker. Dr. Don Wilton will encourage you and inside today on a message called a long walk to Mount Zion. What is I have to do thinkers go trust me let's open God's word together and see how God can use this teaching from Dr. Wilson strengthen you where you are but in a way that reminds you you can't be content to stay where you are in this journey of life. We need to be moving forward.

I would love to move forward with you to pray and encourage you for the next steps. 866-899-WORD is our phone number 866-899-9673. We love to connect with you now.

Dr. you're about to hear something that God wants you to hear. So before I even opened my Bible. I want you to know that we going to take a long walk today from the Valley of Mount Sinai to the peak of Mount Zion, so I want to just say something out before you, because they're all many many people who are taking this wall, this journey, you know, it seems to me that the older I get, the more I look over my shoulder and I look back and I see from whence I have come a look at the journey. I think about my life and I look back and I'm amazed I'm amazed that for me for Dawn for this Christian man that today by God's grace and through his invitation that actually I have been positioned on Mount Zion. When you think back from whence we came long before any of us were even here began with a group of people leaving getting on flimsy little boats arriving on a brand-new seashore all the things that went wrong during that journey we could talk about a lot of roles. Lotta heartache. Lotta struggle, sacrifice great heroism. We can talk about all these things, but that which began with a flight from ended with the declaration of independence. They went from the Valley to the mountain and we are the ones who benefit we are the guardians of that now frames God is going to speak to you today at a very deep level, and I'm going to try my best to explain this to you. I believe that there are many many people, and you may well be one of the that you been on a journey for many many years. Your journey has been a journey trying to find God and for the most part you've done a jolly good job of it but you haven't found it journey began back in the valley somewhere in the Bible. If you would take your Bible and I got my Bible in my hand. If you take your Bible.

The Bible goes from Genesis to Revelation.

Everything in God's word in the Bible, is connected.

Everything and everything that happened in the Bible is designed according to God's purpose for you and for me so if you want to go back into the beginning of the Bible to Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy Joshua Judges and so on and so forth. When you get back to the very beginning we find the story of the children of Israel. The Israelites we know all about the I happen to be a great friend of the Jewish nation. That's why love going there every year. It's a passion of mine, but also for a lot of reasons because that's where Jesus was first revealed to his people. That's why Jesus came. But before Jesus came, God spoke and began this puts you off to God in the half of the people that he loved. I want you to listen very carefully to this God made himself known back in the book of Exodus on a mountaintop school Mount Sinai. I just happen to have been there myself. Many of you have some of you went with me several years ago. You remember when we camped out there in the desert and it was freezing cold. Believe it or not, at 1 o'clock in the morning they woke us up in we got on You remember that it was so pitchdark we didn't know where we were going and probably were glad we didn't when we saw where we were going. When the sun came up and we began this camel trek this journey up Mount Sinai. I remember it like it was yesterday, and for several hours they were in pitchdark being led by Bedouins in the Sinai desert. We went right up to the top of Mount Sinai. When we got to the base camp we had to leave our camels and we had to walk the rest of the way you sleep right up to the summit where it was freezing cold and eventually at about 6 AM in the morning. I wish I could tell you that the sun came up. It didn't come up. It burst forth from the bowels of the earth. I've never seen anything like that.

There was an explosion of light. It was almost like God was giving birth to the declaration that he made back in the book of Genesis when he said, and let their be like and as I sat there on the summit of Mount Sinai. All of a sudden, this explosion just came from within the very bowels of the earth. I'm so used to the sun appearing in a gentle manner and suddenly there it was in the came forth in these rays began to hit us, and I was taken back into the book of Exodus Way, God took Moses he was leading the children of Israel, and he said you just leave all the people down there in the valley and I have to stay in the Valley and only one man, God's man was permitted to go up and he went right up into the top of Mount Sinai and on the very summit of Sinai God spoke, God spoke and he said I want you to know something Moses, I am the Lord your God, thou shalt have no other gods before me and all think he had given the Lord to Moses that which would govern the behavior both vertically and horizontally. The first full of the 10 Commandments dealing with man's relationship with God and the lost six of those compartments, how it is that God in our relationship with him enables us to be impacted in our living relationship with one another and that everything that we do in relationship to one another is a direct reflection of our relationship with God.

Therefore do not see you and do not commit adultery and do not covet your neighbor's wife, and do not bear false testimony and remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Worship the Lord your God, and one would've thought that when God spoke, that in his kindly long-suffering disposition that he would roll out just simply a series of suggestions to his people that they might consider bats when they gathered together and they ascended WITHIN the context of the Constitution of the nation in which they live. Perhaps what God was saying from day from the mount of Sinai was that people consider what he was saying from when the perspective of political correctness. Know God was giving to them. I said of mandates for he is a consuming fire. He didn't say to Moses. Moses going find yourself a good candidate that might best suit what I'm saying and he most certainly didn't say I want you as my people to know that it is that you elect as my representative that will setting your White House during your Parliament that that person is going to have the ability and the capacity to change the hearts of my people God never said that Ry alone am the Lord your God. Shame on us. America, shame on us.

Christian listening to Dr. Don Wilton are G0 The Encouraging Word and don't go away.

He's got so much more to come in this message: a long walk to Mount Zion that's coming up in just a few minutes but he wants me to stop to remind you that were available to have a conversation not just a presentation.

It's a conversation were connecting keyboard keyboard on our website The Encouraging Word.org for you to nuzzle that away in your mind, or perhaps store this phone number 866-899-WORD and know if you need someone to speak with the prey.

With winter 24 hours a day.

The number again is 866-899-9673 would also like to connect on our website The Encouraging Word.org. It's long I know but when you think about it. The The Encouraging Word.org is easy to remember. Of course, applying phone numbers, text lines all sorts of ways to connect on socials and more with Dr. Don Wilton and all of us here at The Encouraging Word broadcast ministry, but now let's dive back in today's message is along want to Mount Zion and this is Dr. Don Wilton then there was one little problem God gave to Moses he said I'm going to put a limit on these people even read about it in Exodus chapter 19 as he began to speak. Mount Sinai began to shake it. It's very cool because this is God speaking.

Even the very mountains shook God put a limit.

Then he told the people you are to stay in the Valley and so they began their journey from the Valley and I tried everything they could to comply. They could not, for no man could. How can any imperfect person. Keep the law, there is none righteous, no not one. So it is the Jesus came because God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him shall not die, but shall have eternal life.

For by grace you are saved through faith, not of yourself, not of the 10 Commandments, not of Mount Sinai come with me.

Jesus said, for I am King and I live forever, and I mediate the war between God and man and the curtain has been torn. You now have access into the holy of holies that now, through Jesus Christ, you can come and stand on the pinnacle of Mount Zion where you will live forever.

I want to read this to you in Hebrews chapter 12 and I encourage you to open your Bibles. There, this is what the Bible tells us in Hebrews chapter 12. Perhaps it will make a little more sense to you.

Hebrews chapter 12 in verse 18. That's what God says to the writer to the Hebrews, verse 18. For you have not, to the mountain that cannot be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom in the Tempest, and the sound of the trumpet and the voice use words made the here is they that no further messages be spoken to them by God, for they could not endure the order that was given to them is not one of us who can keep these commandments my friends if even a beast touches the mountain. It may be stone. Indeed, it was so terrifying. In verse 21 was the sign that Moses even Sadock. Trimble with fear. Remember when Moses came and stood before God and God manifested himself in the burning bush, God said to Moses, take off your shoes from up on your feet, because the place where upon your standing is holy ground and here is Moses on Mount Sinai. Desperate for a word of encouragement for the people that languished in the valley below.

These people who were continually hungry, and these people that were facing unmitigated trials.

These people who are searching for meaning and for peace and for happiness and joy. These people who continually grumbled no matter what they were given. He wanted a word and God put a limit and even Moses trembled with fear, but verse 22. You have come to Mount Zion you come to the city of the living God to the heavenly Jerusalem to innumerable angels in joyful gathering into the church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all into the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus Christ the mediate tour of the new Cumberland and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood even from the sacrifice of Abel who did it right so verse 25. See to it that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them from Mount Sinai on the earth. How much less will we escape if we reject him, who is warning us from heaven, from Mount Zion.

At that time on Mount Sinai needs voice shook the earth but now from Mount Zion.

He has promised it once more I will shake not only the earth but I'm going to shake my entire creation. This phrase, yet once more indicates the removal of things that are shaken.

That is, things that have been created have been made in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving the kingdom that cannot be shaken. That's not dependent on the flimsiness of week personalities and humanity not dependent on the damp and the decay of the world in which we live. Let's fix our attention on that which lost for ever. My friends look at me. I want to beg you to die. Please give your heart to Jesus.

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 all for God is a consuming while this walk from the Valley of Mount Sinai to the pinnacle of Mount Zion.

Two things I just want to share with you to get a value as we try to understand this walk in God's economy began in the Valley of Mount Sinai. There they were. There are hundreds and thousands of people today in our world was school in that very God's giving you an invitation to come from out of the Valley because he's removed the limits he's taken away.

The barrier, he set us free. You know that there is not a single thing that you can do to merit your own salvation you still in the Valley is still locked in to this legalism.

You and I we look at our church and we say that's it. If we go to church will find favor with God, our goodness, that's it. If we just are good people, we gonna find favor with God. That's it.

If we good citizens, we gonna find favor with God. That's it. If we just exercise our boat.

That's it. God's gonna find favorite with us. We just we look at our money, we say well you know we do give our money to our church into the pool. That said, if we just give them God we we look at all the things that we just rear our children and raise them up in the knowledge and admonition of the Lord.

If we remain faithful to our husbands and wives. That's it. If we read our Bible. That's it. If that's what you believe gives you eternal life. You still in the Valley, albeit these things all wonderful. I want to be a good father and a grandfather, not in order to gain favor with God because but because I have gained favor with God through Jesus. I want to give my money to the church.

I want to tie I want to support people. I want to help the week and I want to provide for the needy morning order to gain favor I left the Valley I want Mount Zion stop it God saying come out of the Valley. There were four things the Bible tells us in this passage about this journey that began in the Valley number one Mount Sinai was untouchable. That's what he tells you. In verse 18. Untouchable people couldn't touch the mountain.

I couldn't touch God you didn't dare do that. It was untouchable. Number two was unbearable what the Bible sees in verse 18.

This mountain that cannot be touched is a blazing fire encompassed by darkness and install. In other words, what he is saying is that man in man's attempt to try to reconcile himself to God is going to come up with nothing but emptiness. Because it's not about the man it's all about God Mount Sinai God spoke, he declared himself untouchable either plan himself unbearable. He let it be known it was on cleanable. According to Bruce 20. The Bible says, for they could not endure the order could help us to understand how their unattainable Mount Sinai is. Let's just go through the 10 Commandments again. Listen folks, if keeping the 10 Commandments. If you break my phrase was our ticket to heaven. I wonder how many of us would get to him.

So great is the forgiveness of God in Christ Jesus, so great. This grace of God, the love of our heavenly father is so wonderful and awesome.

He's a consuming Encouraging Word as you can see there's passion and earnestness and love and our pastors preaching. His name is Dr. Don Wilton well-known author evangelist and the pastor Billy Graham for the last 25 years and opportunity to see God now take his ministry ministry Dr. Don Wilton like so many others. Dr. Billy Graham influenced minister after minister after minister, to be sure that it's about the main thing and that sharing Jesus, perhaps you're young and don't know who Billy Graham is perhaps you are older and you do, but today is a day like Mr. Graham invited many many people is the data you need to give your heart to Jesus Christ, as you heard our pastor Dr. Wilson say I beg you to give your heart to Christ. I pray you would understand the urgency of that and how that needs to happen today. We do not believe that it's an accident that we have been producing this program in broadcasting it today so that you would receive it and whether listing the middle of the ear buds working out driving down the road wherever you might be listening. We believe that God has intentionally wanted you to hear this love letter.

This truth that God is using this broadcast to let you know he loves you as a plan for your life. If your developing questions about your relationship with Christ. Let us help find those answers in the Bible itself, God's Encouraging Word. You can type those request to listen and communicate with his keyboard keyboard on a website@theencouragingword.org.

We love to speak with you in this day and age of texting and typing sometimes the most refreshing thing is a conversation with a friend, 866899673 is the phone number you need to know our pastors earnest about this. We really want you to give your heart to Christ. God has spoken to you hesitantly and you're ready to give your heart to Jesus. I'd love to help you right now. Would you pray this prayer with me and accept Jesus into your heart and life. Dear God, I know that on the center. I know that Jesus loves me and died for me on the cross right now, I repent of my sin and I confess my sin to the Lord Jesus Christ come into my heart and save me today and forgive me for my sin.

In Jesus name I pray, amen. If you pray that pray we love to get along side of you and celebrate with you and send you some literature and help you as you begin to grow and I want you to know that I love you very very much by the way, don't leave, don't go away.

What ever you do is I'll be right back.

If the Lord is spoken to you. Let us talk about it. Let us pray with you and put some resources in your hand that will help you for the next step our number again is 866899 word that's 866-899-9673 would love to connect with you and right now you can also go to our website, The Encouraging Word.org discover a great deal about who we are, why we do what we do and how you can get involved. How you could even become an encourager The Encouraging Word hello my friends I want to speak to you personally today from my heart to yours. I don't think there is ever a better or more important time for us to respond to our world by standing up for righteousness. Now with this in mind I would like to invite you to become an encourager ministry partner. You see, together we can impact lives, both now and for all time and all eternity. The Encouraging Word is a viewer and listener supported ministry and to know that you are standing with me financially, enables me to move forward with confidence to do the work God has called me to do so, please call the number on your screen and just simply say I want to become an encourager. Thank you so much for helping me phone number again is 866-899-WORD at 86689673, not just now during the broadcast 24 hours a day we'd love to connect with you, or online@ourencouragingwordwebsitetheencouragingword.org after The Encouraging Word broadcasters over there still a wonderful place to connect 24 hours a day. It's The Encouraging Word.org. You can visit our message archives download Dr. Wilson sermons or sign up for our weekly podcast of favorite button on our website is the prayer request, but you can share a prayer request or personal need. You have a praise report or testimony. Let us know so we can rejoice with you as well. You can also sign up for our daily Bible guide and have devotion sent to your email every single day.

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