Hebrews 12:25, commentary and pictures

Him that speaketh is Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant, speaking from heaven by His blood that speaks better things than that of Abel, and to turn away from Him brings still greater accountability and more certain retribution with no escape than came upon those who refused Him that spake on earth at Sinai. His speaking is His standing at the door of the heart and knocking, pleading through every warning and entreaty in the Word, through His messengers and blessings, and presenting the precious treasure of truth, grace, salvation and His own righteousness and asking to be welcomed in. To refuse Him is not to hear and obey what He says, but to leave each knock unheeded, delay listening, let His pleadings fall on dull or closed ears, and pile up obstructions of cares, business, pleasure and love of His blessings while saying there is need of nothing. Repeatedly refusing strengthens unbelief, makes the heart less willing and less impressible, confuses His voice with other voices, and hardens it until it cannot accept grace, and if His love does not soften and subdue the heart nothing else can reach it. Not to refuse Him is to hearken, open the door, buy the heavenly treasure and bid Him come in, receiving His promise to sup with them, and because believers receive a kingdom that cannot be moved they must hold grace to serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.

Speaker and Solemn Contrast

The One who speaks is Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant, speaking from heaven by His sprinkled blood that speaks better things than the blood of Abel. To refuse Him is not to hear and obey what He says, but to turn away from Christ speaking from heaven.

His speaking is His standing at the door of the heart and knocking and pleading through every warning, reproof and entreaty in the Word of God and through His messengers. It is also through the prosperity and blessings He gives to test fidelity so that they will flow out to others. He speaks from heaven through His word, warning and correcting and inviting the wandering to return to the right path and follow Him, calling them back and seeking to help those who have fallen.

In that knocking He presents precious heavenly treasure, the jewels of truth, the riches of His grace and salvation, and the glistening white vesture of His own righteousness. He comes as the heavenly Visitor who stands at the heart's door and asks to be welcomed, calling the family and each heart to give Him the heart and serve Him. To heed Him is to hearken, open the door, buy the precious heavenly treasure, and bid Him come in with welcome.

Those who refused Him that spake on earth at Sinai did not escape. Turning away from His voice from heaven brings still greater accountability and more certain retribution, leaving still less escape and no escape. The coming voice of God from the Holy City will shake both earth and heaven, His glory will rest on the saints, and the Holy Spirit will be poured out before Christ's second coming to prepare them to stand before Him in glory.

Refusing and Heeding Christ

To refuse Him that speaketh is not to hear and obey what He says, but to leave each knock at the door of the heart unheeded and to delay listening at once. It is to let His pleadings fall on ears dull of hearing or entirely closed, and to let Him knock in vain. The heart that refuses is crowded and overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this life, piling up obstructions of worldly cares and business, of eating and drinking, planting and building, marrying and giving in marriage, and of selfish idolatrous love of His blessings and prosperity given to test fidelity. Such refusal remains in Laodicean blindness and self-deception while saying there is need of nothing, and will not receive the message of warning in these last days.

Refusal is apostasy from truth done under evil spirits and Satan working in the children of disobedience. It is the same spirit that moved Cain to slay righteous Abel because Cain's own works were evil, and that moved the priests and rulers to put Christ to death. It seeks to silence the voice calling to obedience, to provoke the loyal to become disloyal, and to reject those who remain loyal to God.

Repeatedly refusing to listen strengthens unbelief and makes determination to open weaker and weaker. It confuses His voice with a multitude of other voices, lets conviction die away, and makes the heart less willing to hear and less impressible, bringing perilous unconsciousness of the shortness of time and the great eternity beyond. When a ray of light given by God is refused, further light may make no impression. The heart thus hardened gives itself over to Satan's power until it cannot accept grace.

If His love does not soften and subdue the heart, nothing else can reach it, for God has shown the greatest love possible. Those who refuse His voice may follow a false guide in blind self-confidence and move farther from light, peace, happiness and rest. Those who reject the invitation will not share in the gospel feast, and their house is left desolate. Heedless forward movement starts a train of evils beyond control and throws into humanity a grain of thought that lives and works as a root of bitterness, meaning any kind of evil, whereby many are defiled. Ministers and stewards of grace must let the warning hold them back and must not mingle the common with the sacred, for if they do the defilement of many is charged to them.

Not to refuse Him is to hear His voice and practice His Word, to hearken, open the door of the heart, buy the precious heavenly treasure, and bid Him come in with welcome invitation. Those who do so receive His promise to come in and sup with them, and they may sup with Him.

Shaking, Sabbath and Obedience

The voice that once shook the earth at Sinai will yet shake not earth only but also heaven, to remove what is shaken as made things so that what cannot be shaken may remain, and because an unmovable kingdom is received grace must be held fast to serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for God is a consuming fire. Refusing Him who speaks from heaven brings still more certain retribution than befell those who refused Him speaking on earth and did not escape.

In the time of trouble God will speak from the Holy City and deliver the everlasting covenant to His people, and His voice will shake the heavens and the earth. His glory will rest upon the saints, and the Holy Spirit will be poured out before the second coming of Christ to prepare them to stand in glory. The saints will listen to and understand His words while the wicked cannot understand them.

Turning away from what God has spoken brings inescapable judgment, and this applies to turning away from the Sabbath as God's sign and the seal of His law. Those who reject the Sabbath sign and enforce the mark of the beast upon persecuted believers will recognize their fatal error when God's voice shakes the heavens and the earth and His wrath comes upon the persecutors.

The destruction of the Jewish people for rejecting the message of salvation warns the generation before the second advent of Christ, which has been given great light and opportunity, not to reject the light and suffer the same ruin.

God's people at the present day are honored as sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty and redeemed at infinite price by the gift of Christ, and are therefore under most solemn obligation to give themselves unreservedly to His service, to walk in obedience to His commandments, to improve blessings and privileges to His glory, and to preserve a peculiar holy character distinct from the unbelieving world by constant watchfulness, earnest prayer and faith. Like ancient Israel, who covenanted to serve the Lord and then forgot vows for worldly gain or pleasure, many profess and resolve but fail to perform, so jealous self-examination, love to God, earnest determination to obey, and fear rather than self-confidence and presumption are required lest any seem to come short of entering into His rest.