Things That Cannot Be Shaken

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Tuesday, July 4th. It seems like things happen almost every day that could cause us to worry, but believers are assured that despite what we see, we can trust in eternal things that cannot be shaken. What would it take to shake your faith?

You may have been a Christian a long time or a short period of time. What would it take to shake your faith in God? Well, for some of you, it may take a great deal before your faith could be shaken.

But for others, maybe it wouldn't take quite so much. In fact, a whole lot of difficulty, a whole lot of heartache, and maybe you'd begin to say, Well, God, where are you? And what you thought was an absolutely unshakable faith, you may begin to question. Well, there are a lot of things in this world that are being shaken up, and God is behind some of that shaking, and some of it He's not behind, some of it is of the devil. When it comes to shaking your faith and attempting to shake your faith, that certainly would not be of God. But there are other things that are going on around us that certainly are the result of God shaking up a sense of false security, shaking us at the very core of our life, at the core of our nation, the core of this world, because we put so much dependence upon material things and not upon God.

God is certainly is in the process of doing some shaking. And I want you to turn, if you will, to Hebrews, the book of Hebrews. And in this particular book, the last part of this particular book in the 12th chapter, God tells us exactly what He's going to shake.

And I'll give you a little background of what's happening here as you turn to this 12th chapter of Hebrews. And we're going to read beginning in verse 25, but beginning in verse 18, and through those verses that follow, He's comparing Mount Sinai, where the Ten Commandments were given, to Mount Zion, where we find Jerusalem, and we compare the laws of God versus the grace of God. And so in that discussion, He finally ends up by saying in verse 25, 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. And His voice shook the earth then, but now He is promising, Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven.

And this expression, yet once more, denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken as of created things, in order that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. God is God, and He absolutely will not tolerate being ignored, nor will He tolerate man building anything that is supreme enough, super enough, that man can live without God, because all down through those centuries, men were searching for God, seeking God. They had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of gods bowing down to their gods, oftentimes losing faith in their gods, looking for something else.

And what was God doing? Shaking one civilization, one nation after the other. And so you and I could go through history and see how God has shaken nations after nation after nation. God is the absolute sovereign of this universe.

He will not tolerate being ignored by nations or by individuals. Now, so as you and I look back, we can see how God has certainly shaken this whole earth physically, shaken it materially, but that's the past. And so as we look to see how He's worked in the past, and He certainly has shaken up many things, we look around us today and say, okay, well, how does this apply to today? Is God shaking up anything today?

Yes, He is. He's still in the process of shaking nations. As He prophesied in the Old Testament, prophesied in the New Testament, He is indeed shaking them up. That is, He's causing nations to tremble. When you think, for example, about the nations of the earth today, where is there real peace? Where is there no revolution? Where is there real contentment?

Where is there adequacy of anything? Because in spite of everything that man has done, in spite of all of our attempts and all of our abilities and talents to put together all kinds of economies and all the things that anybody would need in a given nation, every single nation is troubled. Every single nation is trembling to some degree. And when people are accumulating material possessions and they look at that and say, this is part of my security, you know how fast you can lose that?

Just that fast. And today the stock market is one thing. Tomorrow, next week, it's something entirely different. People can be happy today over the material possessions and sad tomorrow. Let me ask a question. What is it that you own? What is it that you possess? What is it that you have? What is it that you dreamed about? What are your plans?

What are your goals? What is it that you have that's solid, immovable, unchangeable, absolutely rock solid, you can't lose? Not a living thing materially on the face of the earth. Not a thing.

Why? Because God's in the process of shaking it up. Well, you say, my goodness, if my finances aren't secure, relationships aren't secure, and all my material possessions are up for grabs and I could lose it all, then what have I got?

Well, that's what I've been getting ready to talk about. What is it that cannot be shaken? Look at, look and see what this verse says.

Notice what he says. He says now in verse twenty-seven, And this expression yet once more denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as have created things in order that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. So let's think about something for a moment. Let me tell you what every single one of us believers has that absolutely cannot be shaken. Almighty God. God our Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, the three Persons of the Trinity, absolutely cannot be shaken.

You say, well, what do you mean can't be shaken? Well, first of all, God is sovereign. He is omnipotent. He has all power.

He is in absolute control of every single solitary thing. How does anything less powerful than God move God? It cannot. You can't vote to move Him. You can't cry to move Him.

You can't fast and make Him move. Somebody says, well, now, can't we move God by prayer? We talk about moving God by prayer. You don't move God. He is, listen, that means if you move God, that means that He was here and happy here and you're going to get Him over here.

No. You know what prayer does ultimately? Prayer does not move God. Prayer gets me in a position whereby God who has already willed and chosen to do something in my life or your life, we get ourselves in a position in prayer whereby He can do what He chose to do, what He wants to do, what He predetermined to do, and we simply get ourselves in a position whereby He can do it. And there are certain laws that God goes by, certain principles He goes by, and so when we are following His principles, we get in a position whereby then we make requests of God. God acts in response to our desires, which first of all were His desires to begin with. We're not changing God and moving God. And somebody says, well, you know, does prayer make a difference?

Yes, it does. But it is God in His sovereignty, in His omniscience, knowing all things. God doesn't change His mind. God's not affected by what we do. God is going to move. He is going to sovereignly have His will no matter what. Another thing that you and I have that's unshakable is what you've got in your hand, and that's the Word of God.

Absolutely unshakable. Turn, if you will, to Isaiah chapter 40 and look, if you will, in verse 8. Isaiah chapter 40, verse 8. And this is a scripture you might need to mark in your Bible at some point. He says, verse 8, the grass withers, flowers fade. That means time comes and goes. Things change.

The grass withers, the flower fades. But listen to what he says, but the Word of our God stands forever. There is nothing in this world that's going to destroy the Word of God. There's not anything that's going to shape the Word of God because what is it? The Word of God is the revelation of God. The Bible is God's revelation of Himself. That simply means that God has allowed us to take a glimpse of who He is.

He's pulled back the veil to show us what He's like. You think about all the other religions in the world and how they operate. Their gods are the result of somebody's imagination. And that's why so oftentimes they allow things that our God would never allow.

Why? Because it's man's imagination. They had to come up with it. And so that wasn't sufficient, so then they had to make some idol bow down to it. Now, which one of those idols rose from the dead? Not a one. Which one of those idols that's ever spoken, ever heard, ever answered prayer, ever helped anybody? Not a single one. And when Jesus came upon the scene back in His day, the religions of the world of that day, they were in such a state of flux and change and God was shaking.

Why? Because people were finally fed up. They trusted, they believed all these things and somehow it was not working out. And I want to tell you, my friend, no matter what you're believing in, no matter what gods you may profess to believe in, there is only one true God. That is the God of the Bible. He says the grass is going to wither, the flower fades, but the Word of our God shall stand forever.

Now think about it. This Bible has been around a long time. In fact, when you think about how long it's been around, the truth is what's in these pages.

Now this book right here, the leather and the paper and the print, hadn't been around all that long. But you see, that's not the Bible, it's what's in this. This is the Word of the living God. So that what's in these pages and what's between this leather here is the revelation of God. Now when we talk about revelation, that means this is God's unfolding revealing of Himself. So we see how He's revealed Himself in history. We see how He's revealed Himself in poetry. We see how He's revealed Himself in prophecy, in narration and all of these things. We see how God's revealed Himself.

So what do we have? We have the living Word of God. This is God's holy Word. This is the Word that God has given us as an instruction book.

This is how we're to live. He gives it to us so that we'll understand what He's like, what He's about. He gives it to us so we'll understand how we're to live. Now, it's interesting that all back down through the centuries haven't always had all this at the same time. And now we have it from Genesis to Revelation. We have God's full revelation of all that He wants us to know and all that we need to know.

And you know what? It's been criticized for centuries. People have rationalized it away and said it can't be some revelation of some God because it's got all these errors in it.

So that's one way they've said it. They've criticized it and said, well, you know, it's full of myths. And besides that, man wrote it. And if man wrote it, man makes mistakes. And therefore, because man makes mistakes, you can't put your faith in it.

And therefore, the liberalists said, well, you know, this really means this. The first eleven chapters of Genesis are all myth. The book of Revelation is a mythology of John. So therefore, you can't put your faith in that. And it's interesting to me that the people who don't believe it and can't live by it are not happy. They don't have any contentment and no security. They certainly don't have any eternal security. And what do they have? They don't have anything.

One thing about this book, you can't shake it. Listen, they've burned it. They've criticized it. They've rationalized it.

They've tried to mythologize it. You name it. You know what?

Here it is. Still doing what? Still saving people's lives. Still bringing us into a right relationship with God. It's still the living Word of God. And it's going to be here when every atheist and every agnostic and every unbeliever and every so-called destroyer, when they're dead and gone, it's still the living Word of God.

When you and I get to heaven, it'll still be the unshakable living Word of the living God. So there's something else that I have in this life. And if you'll just think about this, at your house, you may live in a beautiful home with the finest of furniture. I mean, you may have a house that's absolutely, just knock your eyeballs out.

You know what? Let me ask you a question. Let's look at your house.

Put all the furniture in your house together, how beautiful it is. Let me ask you this. When you get ready to die, what difference is that going to make? Not one bit. How many chairs are you taking with you? Not any. How many beds are you taking with you? How many dresses are you taking with you?

Not one. What about all that silver that you've saved up and you won't let your kids use? Because you want to keep it shined and polished and don't touch this? I never have figured that out.

Why do people save and save and save as if they're going to take you with them? Listen, when they put your body in the casket, to my knowledge, I never have seen any silverware, any money, or anything in there. You know what?

It won't do a bit of good. The only thing you and I own physically on the face of this earth that will never change, cannot change, is the living Word of God. So we can say, thank God, there's something not going to be shaken.

What is it? My God's not going to be shaken. The second thing's not going to be shaken is the Word of God because this is His revelation. Well, there's a third thing that's not going to be shaken.

Listen to this carefully. And that is, to all of us who believe us, one thing that's not going to be shaken is our personal relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ, absolutely will not be shaken, cannot be shaken. Money can't take it away from us.

Death can't take it away from us. Listen to what Jesus said. John, chapter 10, verse 27, He said, My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. I give unto them eternal life. Listen, and they shall never perish. Neither shall anyone be able to shake them out of my hand. My Father which gave them to me is greater than all.

I and my Father are one. Listen, if you have a personal relationship with God, there's not anything in this world that can shake you loose. You say, but now wait a minute now, hold it. But what about my faith?

I'm coming to that. There's no one that can shake your relationship with Jesus Christ. But first of all, let's see how you came to that relationship. Well, you heard the Word of God in some fashion. You believe the testimony of the Book.

And so what did you do? You placed your faith in the testimony of God's Word, His revelation, which said that when Jesus Christ went to the cross, He died on the cross for your sin and mine. And you accepted that as true.

And you said, I do receive by faith the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. The Bible says, chapter one of Ephesians, chapter four of Ephesians, that the Spirit of the living God, trial in God, the Holy Spirit sealed you, the Bible says, under the day of redemption, which means He sealed you as His son, as His daughter, until the moment He takes you out of this life. And so that you are sealed forever as a child of God. Now, how did you get sealed? Was it good works?

No. Did you get sealed by your faith? No, you weren't sealed by your faith. You were sealed, listen, by the Holy Spirit, who is responding to what? To your faith in the death of Jesus. It is the death of Christ. It is His atoning death at Calvary that took care of my sin. The moment I placed my faith in His death, in Him as a person, then I was sealed as a child of God.

Now, it wasn't by works. And so what can shake us loose from that? Well, go, if you will, to Romans chapter eight for a moment. Romans chapter eight, look, if you will, beginning in verse 35.

Listen to what he says. Who shall separate us? Who shall shake us loose from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? Now, look at those things. I mean, this is enough to cause anybody to wonder.

Look at that. What shall shake us loose from the love of Christ? Tribulation and distress and persecution and famine and nakedness and peril or sword. He says, for thy sake we are being put to death all day long.

We will consider the sheep to be slaughtered. But in all of these things, what all these difficulties, hardships, trials, persecution, distresses, famineous, nakedness, peril, sword, all of these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Christ who loved us. For I'm convinced that neither death, look at that, neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities of any kind, including Satan, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor death, nor any other created thing. And neither things being created other than God shall be able to separate us, shake us loose from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Now let me ask you something. What is it that can shake your relationship with Christ? What can shake it loose? What can take you away from God? What can snatch you out of the hand of God? Not one single thing.

So this I know. Number one, I know I have something that absolutely cannot be shaken, my God. Secondly, God's Word.

My relationship with Him. So my friend, listen, if you're one of those persons who feels like and who believes that somehow that you can lose your salvation, then let me ask you a question. Where is your security? If you can be saved by the grace of God and then you can lose it, where is your security? And you see, some people say, well, Satan can snatch me out of God's hand.

That's not what Jesus said. Well, I can just choose to walk away. You can choose to walk away, but you know what you'll walk into? You'll walk into this wall of divine discipline. That's what you walk into. Does that mean that God's going to cast you away?

No, absolutely not. Let me ask you a question. If your son, your daughter went through some difficulty and hardship and they said, you know what, I don't want you to be my parents anymore. I'm sorry you're my parents. I wish I'd have never been born to you and walked away. Would you say, well, good riddance for you. No, you wouldn't.

You know what would happen? Your heart would go after them. Your heart would seek them. You would love them.

You'd be praying for them, weeping over them and crying for them to come back. Why? Because your love doesn't change.

I want to tell you something. It doesn't make a difference what happens to you. God's unconditional love is like all of his other attributes.

It does not change. You know what can't be shaken? Your personal relationship with Jesus Christ absolutely cannot be shaken. And He says, what shall separate us from the love of God? He names everything imaginable. Death, life, principalities, power, things to come, things past, I mean, you name it. What can shake us loose?

Not anything. When you and I have the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Savior and we understand who He is, listen carefully now, because I'm going to say something that you may question, number one, but I want you to think about it. If you've placed your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, now listen carefully, and you're walking in His Spirit, doesn't mean you're sinless, but you, that your heart's desire is to be absolutely obedient to God. And you want to walk in His way and His will for your life. This unconditionally loving Father will be to you every single thing that you need in every instance and every circumstance of life, no matter how trying, no matter how difficult, no matter how painful, no matter how upsetting, no matter how disturbing. He will be to you every single thing you need, every single time with no exception so that your faith will not be shaken if you will commit yourself to walk in obedience to Him. Thank you for listening to Things That Cannot Be Shaken. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.