Hot Topics Series - The Promise of God’s Shaking - Episode 147

The Burt (Not Ernie) Show

I’m so thankful you’re listening, and my prayer is that you will be blessed and encouraged and reminded that God’s promises are true, and they are true for you. He gives these promises out of the depths of His unending love for His people, and He keeps those promises in the same manner, from the very depths of His love. We cannot separate the God who loves us from the God who keeps His promises to us. They are both true and cannot be untrue, no, not ever. With that, let’s jump into today’s promise.

Jan's books on Amazon

Connect with Jan here:

Instagram @JanLBurt

TikTok @JanLBurt

Facebook Jan L. Burt Author & Podcaster Page

You’re listening to The Burt (Not Ernie) Show, part of the Spark Network, now playing in the Edifi app. This is episode number 147.

Shaking.

This word could sum up so much of the last three years. If you’ve faced an illness, job loss, have parenting struggles, aging parents, financial concerns, the list is long… this word “shaking” can hit close to home. We’re shook, right? I’m shook.

It’s uncomfortable and it is unnerving, and this is a very real reason for grabbing hold of God’s promises and refusing to let go. The God who made these promises to you is not going to leave you, forsake you, let you down, abandon you or let go of you. He is holding you tightly and you can trust Him.

That’s what we’re looking at in this episode of TBNES.

There are a few verses we find in the book of Hebrews, which is located toward the end of the New Testament, that are going to kind of reframe this shaking issue that has been so real for so many of us. I do think it has hit us all in some manner. Here’s one example: I will order something that I’ve ordered over and over again for years and years, and I will be floored at how much it costs now. This is just one area that has such a broad impact on all of us, just one area. If we compile all the other areas where it’s been a long shaking season, it compiles into something that feels overwhelming.

Now the reason I mentioned the cost of just, well, anything and everything these days is because I don’t want someone to stop listening to this episode because they don’t think it applies to them. It really does apply to all of us. And I really don’t want you to miss what I’m going to share about shaking.

Because the promise of God’s shaking is too important for us to not know and understand, but also a promise we don’t always see as a good thing. But I think, based on the text we’re looking at today, God sees His shaking as very good, and I believe He wants us to see it that way as well.

Hebrews chapter 12, verses 25 through 29 from the NLT:

Be careful that you do not refuse to listen to the One who is speaking. For if the people of Israel did not escape when they refused to listen to Moses, the earthly messenger, we will certainly not escape if we reject the One who speaks to us from heaven! When God spoke from Mount Sinai His voice shook the earth, but now He makes another promise: “Once again I will shake not only the earth but the heavens also.” This means that all of creation will be shaken and removed, so that only unshakable things will remain.

Since we are receiving a Kingdom that is unshakable, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping Him with holy fear and awe. For our God is a devouring fire.

Let’s do a quick recap of what came prior to these verses - God disciplines us as His sons, daughters, and it proves we are His children because He disciplines those He loves and punishes the one He accepts as His child. Heb. 12 vs 1-11 talk about this concept of God’s discipline being evidence of His love and of our sonship.

Verse 12 says, “So take up a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees. Mark out a straight path for your feet so that those who are weak and lame will not fall but become strong.”

So when we are facing the discipline of the Lord, He wants us to toughen up, mark out that straight path. Nowhere does it say wallow in it, feel sorry for yourself, give up, sit down, pout. Nope. Take a new grip, it says, with your tired hands. God acknowledges you may well be very tired. But then He says to take those tired hands and adjust your grip. And the path you mark out, then and there with new grip in the midst of your own tiredness, ends up being a path so that those coming along after you who are weak and lame will not fall but become strong.

Can you see how the Lord is clearly telling you that what you do when you are disciplined and when you feel tired, weary, fatigued has a big impact on others? This is not exactly the American way…but it is Jesus’ way, so it must become our way.

Verses 14-24 tell us to do the work of living at peace with everyone, to work at living a holy life (for those who are not holy will not see the Lord…did you hear that? That seems important!) To look after one another so none of us fails to receive the grace of God (this is a big part of why I have this podcast and why I am starting another podcast, to do my little part in ensuring nobody within earshot fails to receive God’s grace.) And watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many. Ensure against immoral godlessness. And realize that you have come to the assembly of God’s firstborn children whose names are written in heaven. There is no place else where it matters even a smidge for your name to be put down in permanent ink. When the roll is called up yonder, that’s where it matters that your name is put down. Life kicks us around and sometimes we need to be reminded that if our name is on heaven’s rolls, on the books up there, we can endure the kicking around as we await a far better day that is assuredly coming for us. You have come to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant between God and people, and to the sprinkled blood which speaks of forgiveness.

That’s what comes first in Hebrews chapter 12.

And then we land on our verses about the promise of God’s shaking.

After all those awesome, like inspiring awe in us, reminders, the author tells us that we are to be careful.

When someone says to you, as an adult, to be careful, do your ears perk up?

This isn’t like your childhood when you let the words “Y’all be careful out there, ya here?” roll off like water on a duck’s back.

As adults, we take those words more seriously because we’ve seen a thing or two, as the Farmer’s commercials say, and we know others have seen stuff too and their warning could save our hide. So, we listen. And our decisions and our behaviors are modified when we listen.

What does verse 25 tell us to be careful of? That we do not refuse to listen to the One who is speaking. One is capitalized, and it refers to the Lord. Don’t refuse to listen when He speaks. His chosen people, the Israelites, did not get away with it when they refused to listen to Moses, an earthly messenger, a great man, a man more humble than any other, but a mere man nonetheless, they did not escape for refusing to listen to him. How much more will we, grafted in Gentile believers, not get away with refusing to listen to the Lord God Almighty? And it’s good to note here that when we shrug off God’s word, when we don’t apply it, believe it, adjust where He is telling us to adjust course, that is in His eyes the same as refusing to listen to Him. Thumbing our noses at God when He stoops down to speak with us. This is dangerous ground, and we have this stern warning so that we will know that, like the Israelites, the only solid ground beneath our feet is the Rock of Jesus, on Christ the solid Rock we must stand, or the ground could still open up beneath our very feet and swallow us whole. It’s a strong warning, but a good one.

Don’t reject, in any way, shape, or form, the One who speaks to us from heaven.

When God spoke from Mount Sinai, His voice shook the earth. And they were terrified! Covering their ears, crying out Moses to ask God to speak to him and he could pass it along to them because they did not think they could survive, like could not remain alive, if they continued to hear God’s voice. We don’t live in that kind of awe, reverence, astounded that this same God tore the veil so we could come directly into His presence as often as we choose to. We should be floored by this! Do we need a radical wake up call? Perhaps we do. Perhaps we need it so badly that without it we are in very dire straits. Or floating on the doldrums. Either image is frightening, and I want us to miss ZERO percent of what God intends for us to have in this life. One thing He wants for us, as made clear here in Hebrews 12, is to listen when He speaks. Pay attention. Listen well. Because verse 26 and 27 tell us that just as He shook the earth when he spoke at Mount Sinai, he makes this promise (this is the promise for today’s episode, so please check back in and listen up!) - Once again God will shake not only the earth, but the heavens also. A great shaking is coming, my friend. And in fact is already beginning. Does it seem like we are in a snowglobe and the hand shaking it just keeps on shaking and shaking? Like the girl in Finding Nemo, who wouldn’t stop shaking the bag, who shook her fish to death and yelled, “Fishy, why are you sleeping??” We’re in a season of shaking. God will do such shaking Himself, or at times allow the evil one to do the shaking, so that all that needs to be removed falls away. Good fruit remains, securely attached to the vine, who is Jesus. Fake fruit, bad fruit, and even so much of the junk that weighs us down and renders us ineffective for the Kingdom of our God, that stuff falls away in times of shaking. And you know, while it may be hard and seem kind of brutal in the midst of it, the end result is so good. When we step into eternity, we will never wish we’d hung on to the things that hindered us in our walk with Jesus. What will matter will be the Lord, and what won’t matter will be the things of this earth, which is destined to fire and will burn up, just as the Bible says.

How can God’s shaking be bad when the end result, the promise, is so good?

Verse 27 - This means that all of creation will be shaken and removed, so that only unshakable things will remain.

Look, what we are dealing with these last few years is very intense in so many ways, in the physical realm and the spiritual realm. But it has a purpose when we view it through the lens of the Word of God. You are becoming unshakable. And only that which is unshakable will remain. Pain and struggle and difficulty become very different when we view them through this passage. What feels impossible to make it through becomes endurable, because God has given us the promise that on the other side of this shaking comes something far beyond our wildest hopes and dreams. In other words, it is worth it. Jesus is always worth it!

Since we are receiving a Kingdom that is unshakable, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping Him with holy fear and awe. For our God is a devouring fire. Verses 28 and 29 of Hebrews chapter 12.

Your God is a devouring fire. Would you prefer to endure this shaking now so that you can receive His unshakable Kingdom, or would you prefer to face the devouring fire that is our God? He cannot be less than He truly is, and He will not bend the knee to our whims and our fancies. He is who He is, and can be none other. He is an all-consuming, devouring fire.

And He is your loving ABBA Father.

When we live knowing that the One watching over us, taking careful note of all that is happening in our lives, is that devouring fire, it brings so much comfort. How can you not fully trust a Father who will be for you a devouring fire? This is the promise of God’s shaking, and while not always comfortable, it is a beautiful promise all the same.

Let Him do His shaking, and expect to see amazing things as you receive His Kingdom, careful to listen when He speaks and remembering that His discipline is your proof that you are His child.

I hope you can rest in the assurance of His love in ever increasing measure and trust even the longest, hardest, shakiest of days to Him, knowing that in His capable and strong hands, you are in the safest place you could possibly be.

Thanks for joining me for this Hot Topic podcast episode, and I’d like to share a few things about the 150th episode that is coming up very soon, in just a few weeks. My plan is to launch my new podcast, The Prayer Podcast, alongside the 150th episode of The Burt (Note Ernie) Show…which isn’t going anywhere, I’m still gonna keep talking about God’s promises here. The Prayer Podcast will have slightly shorter episodes and will focus on just one thing - you guessed it, prayer. And I will be praying over listeners regularly as well as sharing what the Bible tells us about prayer.

And I’m also giving away some fun things - gift cards to your favorite coffee shop, an Amazon gift card, and a gift certificate to a small business run by a fellow Jesus lover, and some other prizes too. You’ll hear more about how to enter the giveaway soon, so stay tuned. Oh, and the prizes will be spread out among several winners, just wanted to clarify that not all the prizes go to one winner. Spreading it around and honestly, as many giveaway prizes as I can afford, that’s how many I’ll give away. Episode 150 is a milestone and I want to say THANKS for being part of this show the last few years.