I want you to turn back this
morning to Hebrews chapter 13. I hope I have a word for this hour. And I hope that I especially
have a word from God those of us who he has in his providence
gathered in this place today. I take the title for this message from a verse in an old hymn that says, O thou who changeth
not. That's who I want to talk about.
O thou who changeth not. On one hand around us, there
are many cries for change. And I guess this has to be a
confession that things are not as they should be. And they are
not as we would want them to be. But there is only one change
which man can bring. And that is described in Paul's
words to Timothy when he says, But evil men and seducers shall
wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived." That statement has proved true
certainly in the political world, and it is also being proved true
right now in the business world. But it is never more true than
it is in the religious world. Worse and worse. And it is a change that takes
place simply by men offering, salvation by works, and then
someone else coming along offering in the light of that failure
more salvation by works. Someone during the service on
Wednesday left some flyers under the windshield wipers on all
the vehicles, and it was one of those kind of things wherein
the attempt is to scare you in the light of the present hour,
using Scripture, using current events, warning and threatening
and such as that. But when I read it, it was simply
someone trying to cause somebody to flee from one kind of salvation,
by words, to their brand of salvation by works. And then, on the other
hand, there are many changes that are taking place. But they're
not changes that we like very much. They're changes in the
world, that is, in its morals, in its politics, and in its economics. And more than that, changes in
us and changes with us, that is, in our bodies and in our
situations and in our relationships and in our surroundings. And
I say these things that we might honestly confess the reality
of this hour and the reality of our own selves and the reality
of the inability of all of the fallen sons and daughters of
Adam. Because real hope and real consolation
are not to be found in looking to man for change or even in
seeking to change ourselves. The foundation and the only ground
and place of any hope is in looking to God as He is in Jesus Christ
who never changes. He never changes. You see, man vainly imagines
that he can bring about a change in this world for the better. But the reason that he never
can is because he does not know the reason that he can't. And the reason that he can't
and the reason that he hasn't is because he cannot change the
root of the problem. And that is us. Do you get really displeased
with these politicians? The reason that they are the
way that they are and things are the way they are is because
they're just like us. And that is the way it has always
been since Adam's fall, and that's the way it is in every sense
apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. The words of Jeremiah stand so
very true. He said, can the Ethiopian change
his skin? You say, that's so foolish. You
know he can't. Or can the leopard change his
spots? Oh no, that's foolish. He says,
then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil. Man cannot do good any more than
the black man can change his skin any more than the leopard
can change his spots because he is essentially and inwardly
sinful and evil and depraved. And so if we look for any kind
of a change in the positive in man, There will never be any
hope for you or me in anything, and especially in the matter
of our souls. But look down at that eighth
verse. He says, Jesus Christ, the same
yesterday and today and forever. If everything in us and everything
about us and everything in the world around us is changing,
God bind us mind, body, spirit, and soul to the unchanging Christ. There is no change in Him. And when you stop and think about
it, unchangeableness applies only to God. God Himself never
changes. and there is no volatility, there
is no unpredictability, and there is no excitability in God. So, when I call upon you to look
to Jesus Christ, When I call upon you to believe on Him and
to commit everything to Him, I am saying to you nothing less
than look to God as He is in Jesus Christ. Because if He is
the same yesterday and today and forever, He is absolutely
nothing less than God manifest in the flesh. The psalmist wrote
this of old. He said, Of old thou hast laid
the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work
of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt
endure, yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment. as a vesture shalt thou change
them, and they shall be changed. But thou art the same, and thy
years have no end." Now, the amazing and the wonderful thing
about that is God attributes that very thing to His Son. Hold your place and turn back
to Hebrews 1. Here in this same epistle in
Hebrews 1 and that eighth verse, it says, But unto the Son he
saith. In other words, God the Father
says something to the Son that He never says to the angels or
to anybody else at any time. It says, But unto the Son he
saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is
the scepter of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness
and hated iniquity. Therefore God, even thy God,
hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. And thou, Lord, in the beginning
hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the
works of thine hands. They shall perish, but thou remainest,
and they all shall wax old as doth a garment. And as a vesture
shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed, but thou
art the same, and thy years shall fail not." He will not grow old,
and he will not grow weak, and he will not grow unholy. He will never cease. This is
Jesus Christ who is the same yesterday and forever. In other words, He who was before
all times and continues in every age will be on all times, so
continue to be the same. He will not change. As a matter of fact, when the
Spirit of God directs John in the Revelation to describe him,
he says something like this, John, to the seven churches which
are in Asia, grace be unto you and peace from him which is and
which was and which is to come. In other words, every word of
grace, every word of truth, every decree, every purpose of God
flows out of him and through him who is the same yesterday
and today and forever. He does not change in his essence. In other words, He exists in
an eternal constancy of perfection. God has always looked to His
Son. He exists in this eternal constancy
of perfection, and He does not alter in the least degree. That is His worth, His person,
His promises. They do not change in value like
our stocks or our money or our retirements. And this is why
it proves so foolish to have any hope or any confidence or
any dependence on those things that God has already told us
are going to change. He said, Lay not up for yourselves
treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where
thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures
in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where
thieves do not break through nor steal. And he may not be a man with
a gun. He may be a man with a plan. He may be a man that comes to
you and tries to make your life better. He may make your bank
account bigger. Whatever it is. But he steals
from you. And so God points us, warns us
of that very thing. And He points us to Him who changes
not. He said, in Christ. are all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge. All the riches of God's grace,
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, all the promises of God
are yea and amen in Him. All of God's salvation, all of
the eternal inheritance, all of the mercy of God, all the
grace of God, all the everlasting love of God, they have always
been in Christ, and they'll always be in Christ. And so the only way that we'll
ever possess the lasting, the true, the real, the genuine,
and the eternal And especially righteousness, which God gives
as a gift, is to get them in Jesus Christ. And God has given
them to His people in Christ. And if we could just see that.
He is the same and He changes not. He is forever that one rock. He is that sure foundation. And He is the one who said as
God, I am that I am. Period. And we have no interest
in that which is precious, or true, or lasting, or glorious,
or eternal, except we have an interest in that One who is the
same yesterday, and today, and forever. Not only does He not
change in His essence, He does not change in His will and purpose. He is infinite in knowledge. He knows all things. He cannot and does not have need
to be taught anything. Nothing can take Him by surprise. And His desires and His designs
and His decisions, whether they be in time and whether they be
in eternity, they are all perfect. You ever make any bad decisions?
Do you ever have in your attempts to change things, do you ever
make any bad decisions? He doesn't. He never has. He never will. And I pray that
God, the Spirit, will bring us, that He will, if nobody else,
He'll bring my heart to bow my decision to His decisions. He said, Thy will be done on
earth as it is in heaven. His decisions are not only perfect
and right. His designs and desires are perfect
and right. They cannot be thwarted in any
way or at any time, and they cannot be improved on. You think you can make better
on the perfect will of God? Paul said, this is the will of
God in Christ concerning you. Rejoice in it. The writer of
Ecclesiastes, the wise Solomon, beyond human wisdom, by the Spirit
of God said, I know that whatsoever God does, whatsoever God does, it shall
be forever. Nothing can be put to it, nor
anything taken from it, and God does it. that men should fear
before Him. He does it forever. You look
at your health, it won't be forever. You look at a few dollars you
got stuck back in an account, it won't be forever. You look
at this nation, it won't be forever. You look at all these things
that occupy our attention and that we cling to for our comfort,
it will not be forever. But what God does. That's why I don't want salvation
by my works. It won't be forever. That's why
I don't want it by my will. It won't be forever. It's only
what God has done and what He has done in Jesus Christ that
will be forever. by the prophet Isaiah, he calls
us to this truth. He says, Remember the former
things of old, for I am God, and there is none else. I am
God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning,
and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying,
My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure calling a
ravenous bird from the east, the man that executes my counsel
from a far country, yea, I have spoken it. I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it. I will also
do it." In other words, one thing he's saying here in this is,
I will use whoever I will to affect my purpose. And he likens
him to a ravenous bird. What's that? That's a hungry
bird. That's a bird that gobbles up
everything in sight. That's a bird that if turned
loose on us in the purpose of God can gobble up our health
and gobble up our possessions and gobble up our families and
gobble up all these things if that is the purpose and will
of God. And the only hope we have is
that His purpose is a purpose of grace for us in Jesus Christ. Because if he's purposed grace
for us in Christ, if he's determined to save us as his people, if
he's determined to make us righteous in his Son, that all the ravenous
birds that might be turned loose upon us, They can gobble up everything
in the changes that they bring, but they cannot change that which
is the same yesterday and today and forever. They can't gobble up. They may
be turned loose of God to gobble up all these things to cause
us to trust more fully in Christ. to show us that the only lasting
thing is Him and that salvation that is in Him. All His purposes
are the same. He desired to glorify Himself
in the salvation of a people which He loved and chose in Christ
before the world began. He predestined, as the Scripture
says, and predetermined all things in heaven and earth around this
and sent Christ into this world to accomplish all things necessary
to justly do it. Just turn to Ephesians 1. The
only way we couldn't understand that is if we are in a state
of spiritual blindness which is our natural unwillingness
to believe it. This is God's doing. This is
God's work. This is God's purpose. It says
it on the page. And if we cannot believe it,
it is simply because we will not believe it, and we are like
the Pharisees that he spoke to and said, he said, you will not
will to come to me that you might have life. You see, Christ was and is and
always shall be the justification of His people, the redemption,
the righteousness, the wisdom, the sacrifice of His people. He was always the surety of His
people, the substitute of His people, the Savior of His people. And He's the same yesterday and
today and forever. Paul, writing to Timothy, speaks
of this Savior God. He says, Who has saved us? People are talking about when
they got saved, or they're trying to urge people to get saved.
It says, "...when He who hath saved us, and called us with
an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began." And the only way you'll ever
know anything about salvation is when God shows you that salvation
is something outside of yourself. Salvation is something accomplished
by someone other than yourself. Salvation is accomplished before
yourself, before you ever had a will, before you ever sinned
an actual sin in your flesh. It's in Jesus Christ, the same
yesterday and today and forever. It's in Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. You see, He was the Lamb, the
Bible says, slain from the foundation of the world. He was the Lamb
John saw and said to behold who takes away sin. He is the Lamb
slain by wicked hands according to the determinate counsel and
for knowledge of God, and He is the Lamb that John saw enthroned
in heaven as one that was newly slain. Why? How could he say
He's newly slain? He was just like newly slain.
Because he is the same yesterday and today and forever. He is the one who said, and this
is the Father's will which hath sent me. that of all which he
hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again
at the last day. And this is the will of him that
sent me, that every one which seeth the Son and believes on
him may have everlasting life, and I'll raise him up at the
last day." So that hadn't changed a bit.
That was the Father's will. That is the Father's will. And
that always will be the Father's will. And it will all work, not
only to the salvation of every one of His sheep, but to the
praise of the glory of His grace, worlds without end, because He does not change His
free and sovereign grace to His elect. Somebody said, don't use
that word, it'll kind of confuse people. No, we were born confused. And God's Word, which is truth,
which is pure and right, in the hands of His Spirit, teaching
us, is the only thing that will un-confuse us. When they were going out in the
New Testament, in the book of Acts, preaching the gospel and
bearing witness to the truth, they were described by the enemies
of God in this way. These are they that have turned
the world upside down. No. Ever since Adam and his race
fell in the garden, the world has been upside down. And it's
only by the truth of the gospel It's only when men and women
are brought to believe on Jesus Christ and to cast off every
other hope, only then will the world be right side up. He does not change in His sovereign
free grace. James says, every good gift and
every perfect gift is from above. and comes down from the Father
of lights, perfection, glory, with whom is no variableness,
neither shadow of turning." That people that God loved in
Christ before the world began, He loves them right now, and
He always will love them. His purpose to save them was
their salvation. He's not going to change. He's
not going to look and say, well, you didn't do exactly right today,
so you're lost today. You're not saved one minute,
lost the next minute, up one minute, down the next minute.
What kind of a God salvation would that be? Now, if I was
saving you, you'd be most of the time down and out. Or if
I thought that's really the way it was, and that you were truly
one minute saved, I would run quickly with a gun and shoot
you and kill you so that before you unchanged, you'd go on to
heaven." That would be stupid, wouldn't it? That's not God. That's man. That's just another way of man.
With respect to his not changing in all his grace, it says, his
compassions fail not. His mercy endures forever. His love is everlasting. His righteousness endureth forever. And so His truth and His judgments,
His Word endures forever. And this is made manifest in
that He said not one jot or tittle will fail. Not one. They used to have Men sit down. All the old scrolls and manuscripts
that we have and have had over the ages, even of the Bible,
they would have men to sit down and hand copy all those manuscripts,
all those scrolls. You suppose a man ever made a
mistake and put a period here that should have been over here
or something like that? I imagine what had happened. But God preserved
the perfection of His message, of His truth, of His promises
in Christ. He preserved them through every
kind of hell and happening that has come to this world, everyone
that rose up to destroy His message, and yet it's still the same. You ever hear people talk about
the contemporary gospel? No, it's called the everlasting
gospel. You know why that is? Because
God is still the same. And sadly, man in himself, he's
still the same. Most importantly, because Jesus
Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. He does not change in the efficacy
and the application of His work. You see, Jesus Christ is the
same in all His offices. He is the one prophet. He is
the one priest. And He is the one King. That
is, as the one prophet called that prophet, He is the only
one to reveal God to us. And as that priest, that one
priest who is a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek,
He is the only one who can represent us before God. And as the King
of kings, He is the only one to rule over us. The only one. And he is the same
as that one mediator between God and me. We have in our days so many self-appointed
mediators. The Pope is a self-appointed
mediator. You can't talk to God or go to
God. Or Mary is. Or this priest is. who is as
wicked as anything could be, or even this preacher who commands
people to come down and shake his hand, and he'll pray for
you. And yet the Bible says, there
is one Mediator. What's that? A go-between. There
is one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. And the reason why men won't
preach Christ is because if they preach salvation of the Lord,
salvation by grace, salvation not by works but in Jesus Christ,
they ought to abandon immediately all their man-honoring, flesh-exalting
things that characterize religion in our day. God still will not accept anyone
but His Son and those who are in His Son. The only ones He
saves are those He saves by Christ, those who are washed in Christ's
blood, those who are made righteous by God, who in grace imputes
His righteousness to them, and Christ's work is that work of
righteousness It was a debt paid. It was a ransom delivered. It
is the surety satisfying God in every point. It is according
to truth. And it is grounded in divine
justice and based on divine faithfulness and unchangeableness. Now, that man is a liar who says
Christ died for every body. and then who turns around and
says that somebody's going to go to hell. And you don't have
to be a rocket scientist to figure out that either Christ's work
was not really a success or that it depends on one hand on something
man does to make that work a success. You see, if that's true, if Christ
died for everybody, everybody, as one man said years ago, every
person in hell would be a testimony to the failure of God. That's not going to happen. Because Jesus Christ is the same
yesterday and today and forever. The words of Malachi, which were
the words of Jehovah God. He says in Malachi 3 and verse
6, For I am the Lord, I change not. And that's only half the sentence. He says, Therefore ye sons of
Jacob are not consumed. You just change it. That characterizes
us from the day we're born to the day we die. Nothing but change. It's downhill from the day you
die. You don't get any better in this
flesh. Your health don't improve as
you grow older. You get closer and closer to
leaving this world, and as he said, it's certain that you brought
nothing into this world, and it's certain you're not going
to take anything out of this world. But he said, I don't change. Therefore, you sons of Jacob,
that's the name by which God's elect are called, so as to remind
us of what we are in our own selves and our own character,
like Jacob, the conniving, swindling, wretched creature that he was. I don't change. I've loved you
with an everlasting love, not because there was anything lovable
in you, but because I loved you. I chose you not because of anything
I saw in you or that you would do. I just chose you because
I loved you. I predestinated all things concerning
you because it was necessary in order to save you and determined
to bring everything to pass to accomplish that goal and to glorify
myself. And I sent my Son to die in your
place, to pay your particular debt. to bring that ransom that
sets you free, to satisfy all the claims of my justice against
you, to make Him to be sin for you, that you might be made the
righteousness of God in Him. I'm not changing. I'm not changing. Deuteronomy, it says of him,
he is the rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are judgment,
a God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is he. Turn back to Hebrews 6 a minute.
Hebrews chapter 6, and look down in verse 17. He said, men, in
order to confirm supposedly an oath or a promise or that something
is truth, they swear by the greater. As a matter of fact, man has
no hesitancy to invoke God to back up his lies. The Lord told
me to do this, so help me God. No, listen to what it says in
verse 17. He says, wherein God, willing
more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability, the unchangeableness
of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath. that by two immutable
things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have
a strong consolation who has fled for refuge to lay hold of
the hope set before us. Which hope we have as an anchor
of the soul, both sure and steadfast and which entereth into that
within the veil." This goes into heaven itself, not that veil
in the tabernacle or the temple that separated the holy place,
but in the presence of God. Whither the forerunner is for
us entered. Who is the forerunner? Jesus.
Made an high priest. forever after the order of Melchizedek. It's not as if you'll do something,
Christ will go into the Holy of Holies and offer His blood
for you. That's not it. No, he says Christ, when He was
crucified, shed His blood, buried, raised from the dead, and that
He entered in as the priest did with the sacrifice of His blood,
for all his people. And he said it by two immutable
things, two things that cannot change, because God cannot change,
His purpose and His promise. God's counsel and oath, which
never change and alter, and from which He never varies, assure
the salvation of all who are in Christ their priest." Who
did that high priest represent when he went into that holy of
holies in the tabernacle once a year and sprinkled that blood? He represented Israel. He didn't represent all those
Egyptians or all those peoples of Canaan such as the Hittites
and the Jebusites and such. He went in and represented the
people of God. That's why Paul said, we are
the true Israel. We are the true circumcision
who worship God in the Spirit. and who rejoice in Christ Jesus
and who have no confidence in the flesh. The work he engaged
in on the behalf of his people he declared finished. The death
he died in our place he died once. The sacrifice He offered
to God for our sins was one sacrifice for sins forever. The sufferings
He endured in our behalf, in the behalf of those who trust
Him, brought them to God. And His work for us changes us,
and His work in us changes us, but He never changes. And His work has brought all
his people into an unchangeable state of being justified before
God. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday
and today and forever. You know, this assures the continuance
and the accomplishments of his church. I would never prepare a message
or stand to preach if this were not true. But he said, and teach all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have
commanded you. And, lo, behold, I am with you always,
even unto the end of the world. Amen. That's what he said. It's
fixed. It's true. So be it. It can't be changed. And not
only that, but this also assures us and reminds us that his past
power is his present power. that, humanly speaking, I would
love to see. And most especially as they pertain
to the souls of men, to the souls of those that the Lord has brought
under the sound of this ministry and gospel to family members
and friends and acquaintances all around their things, I would
just love to see. I pray for them. But this reminds me that the
reason they haven't happened isn't because a want in His power. No. It's because He has it in His
purpose to do it. At least, not as of yet. But it doesn't matter how hard
my friend, my child, my neighbor, my parent. It doesn't matter
how hard their hearts may seem to become. It doesn't matter
how bound up in a false religion they seem to be in grip. It doesn't matter how hard they
seem to be against the truth. If he was able to save Saul of
Tarsus, If He was able to save me, then I certainly cannot despair
of His having an inability to save whom He will. You say, well, I don't, I'm not
very good at talking to my children or my friends or my family or
my co-workers and such. I'm not really either. But I try to get them under the
sound of the gospel, try to get them to read this or listen to
this or what have you, not because I'm able to persuade and not
because they're able themselves to believe, but because Jesus
Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. And the Bible says that the Messiah
is one who is mighty to save. The psalmist said, ìWe have heard
with our ears, O God. Our fathers have told us what
work thou didst in their days in the times of old.î Why hasnít God opened up a new Red Sea? done a lot of other things that
he did because he didn't want to. Because this is a spiritual hour
in which he goes into the hearts and lives of men and he binds
the one who holds them and spoils his goods and sets them free
from the bondage of their own self-righteousness and sin, from
the bondage of Satan. He delivers those who Satan has
taken captive at his will. Maybe it would be good for us
to look back and read that 5th and 6th verse of Hebrews 13 concerning our daily life and
all these things. He said, let your conversation
or your conduct of life Be without covetousness. And be content with such things
as you have." You see that? That's not something that he's
saying, well, this is the way you ought to be. No, he says,
this is the way to be. This is the way you are to be.
Be content with such things as you have. For he hath said, I
will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." I wonder how many people this
past week, just this past week, had great portions of their fortunes to leave them, to just kind of disappear. It's
amazing that which is on paper, it can be gone so fast. But he said, I'll never leave
you or forsake you, so that we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper. And I will not fear what man
shall do unto me." All the hubbub about the presidential
election, and all the hubbub about the stock market, and all
the hubbub of religion. I will not fear what man shall
do unto me. Why? Because Jesus Christ is
the same yesterday and today and forever. And this shows us that He is
the only safe refuge, the only sure thing, the only salvation,
the only true hope, the only true God. And this shows us that he still
receives needy sinners who forsake all and trust him. He's the same
prophet, the same priest, the same king. To those who trust
his work, he still sends his gospel. His gospel is still the
same. It concerns him and what he's
done. And he still says, come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. He still says that to his people
who wander and stray, who worry and fret and such as that. Come
unto me. All ye that labor and are heavy
laden, I give you rest. And I'm the same yesterday and
today and forever. Take refuge in Christ and rest in the unchanging Son
of God and His accomplished salvation. Here is the whole verse of the
hymn that I mentioned. Swift to its close ebbs our life's
little day. Earth joys grow dim, its glories
pass away. Change and decay in all around
I see. O thou who changeth not, Abide
with me." That's my prayer. Father, this day we give You
thanks for Your great glory, especially as You manifest the
glory of Your grace and mercy in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Fresh avails that sacrifice,
that blood, that righteousness for all your people. May one of your sheep this day
find Christ revealed in them. May they be brought to rest.
to trust, to believe on, the one who is the same yesterday,
today, and forever. Grant to us confidence in Him, for we pray and ask and thank
you for all things in His Amen.