Well, the title that has been
assigned to me for this session is God's Unchanging Word. And
there's one text that immediately comes to my mind, and I want
to direct you to it now, is Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 8. Isaiah
chapter 40 and verse 8, and in many ways this is the signature
text in Scripture for the immutability of the Word of God. And I want
to begin by just reading this one verse, and this will be our
primary focus during this first session, Isaiah chapter 40 and
verse 8. God's inspired, inerrant, and
infallible Word reads in verse 8, the grass withers, the flower
fades, but the Word of our God stands forever." We live in a world that is constantly
changing. Everything is in flux around
us. Nothing is stationary. Everything is changing. The political landscape is changing
virtually moment by moment with cable television. The stock market
is constantly changing up and down. The international powers
and trade agreements are changing. But more than anything else,
morality is changing. Culture is changing. Society
is changing. Gender roles are changing. Genders
are changing. R.C. Sproul said, modern man's
feet are firmly planted in midair. And that's the world in which
we live. And there is only one constant,
there is only one anchor point, there is only one immovable cornerstone
in this world, and it is God Himself. and it is the Word of
God that stands forever. This was exactly the message
that the people in Isaiah's day needed to hear, because the times
were rapidly changing. King Uzziah had been on the throne
for fifty-two years in Israel, and as long as King Uzziah was
on the throne, some seven centuries before the coming of Christ,
Everything seemed to be secure. The economy was strong, the military
was built up, the borders were secured, and then Uzziah died. And in that vacuum there suddenly
came mach speed change. And everything began to suddenly
change, and apostasy and idolatry spread like a cancer in Israel
and was taking the nation down. And in the midst of this, God
pronounced judgment upon the nation and said that they would
be taken into Babylonian captivity. And in the midst of pronouncing
judgment in the first 39 chapters, as well as God's judgment on
the surrounding nations, beginning here in chapter 40 and extending
to the end of the book of Isaiah, God looks into the future, and
not only will the people of God be taken out of their land as
hostages, taken exile into Babylon, and there be for some seventy
years, God had already prepared the way for their return after
the captivity. And beginning here in chapter
40, God brings a word of hope and encouragement. And it is
in such stark contrast that liberal theologians have said there has
to be a second Isaiah to have written the latter half of the
book because it's in such stark contrast. But the reality is,
it is the same author, Isaiah, but more than that, it is the
same voice. It is God's voice that is speaking. And we need to hear this same
message that God gave to Isaiah to give to the nation and to
the people of God, that the grass withers, the flower fades, but
the Word of our God stands forever. It's very easy to break out this
one verse. There's the first line, and there's
the second line. In the first line, I want to
put the heading, the perishing of man's life. And then the second
line is the permanence of God's Word. Very easy to break out
this simple verse that is also quoted in the New Testament. So, let's begin looking at the
first line, the grass withers, the flower fades. This is the perishing of man's
life. Everything about man's life is
perishing. When he says, the grass withers
and the flower fades, it is actually a reference to mankind, using
flowers and grass as an analogy, as something of a metaphor, a
comparison to make. And the point that he is making
here is that man is ever and always passing off the scene
and off of the stage of human history. Uzziah has passed off
the scene. The kings of Israel have passed
off the scenes. Even the different prophets have
passed off the scene. Man's life is ever-changing and
ever-perishing. He is fading like grass, withering
like grass, and fading like the flower. This analogy depicting
man as the withering grass and the fading flower is is pointed
out in verse 6 and 7. I want you to look at the previous
verses because it becomes very apparent. In verse 6, we read,
a voice says, call out, and the voice is none other than God
Himself. It is God speaking to the prophet
Isaiah. God is a speaking God. Francis
Schaeffer wrote a book many years ago, God is there and He is not
silent. God goes public with what His
infinite mind and His genius is thinking, and He speaks to
the prophet Isaiah, and He says, call out, prophesy, preach, lift
up your voice, don't whisper, call out and bring a strong message. And Isaiah answered, then he
answered. It could be translated, I said.
What shall I call out? What shall I say to the people?
What is the message And Isaiah looked to God for what to say,
because Isaiah understood the message does not originate within
himself. Isaiah is not to pass on his
own thoughts or perspective or opinions. Isaiah understood that
he is only a mouthpiece for the living God. He is but the messenger. And so, he also knew that the
message would not come from around him. He would not look to the
culture. He was not to look to society.
He was not even to look to the religious traditions of Israel. He was to hear the message that
God is giving to him. And so we read in the second
half of verse 6, so here is the message. And the message now
begins in the middle of verse 6, and it continues into our
text in verse 8. All flesh is grass, and flesh
here representing human life. And that's very obvious in verse…at
the end of verse 7, he says, surely the people are grass,
and flesh here representing human life. And he's making a comparison
that the people of his day and the people of every generation
and every century, just like in this present day, were like
grass that sprouts up in the springtime, that looks so vibrant,
and looks so healthy, and looks so beautiful, it's so lush, and
so promising. All people at first appearance
look so…look so vibrant, and all its loveliness. is like the
flower of the field, blossoming and blooming and beautiful and
attractive. Man looks so good. Man sounds
so good. Man makes many promises and makes
many boasts. Man is articulate and smart and
intelligent and inventing and industrious. But when we come
to verse 7, it's almost as if a however or a but should be
added at the beginning of verse 7, because now there is a stark
contrast. This grass and the flower that
appears in its moment in time and within history. In verse
7, the grass withers. The flower fades. What began
so well in springtime as it shot forth from the dirt and looked
so healthy, during the summer when the hot sun of summer comes,
the grass just turns brown. The grass dries up and shrivels
away. And the flower that was blooming
and blossoming and smelling so well. It now fades and falls
to the ground, so vulnerable to the hot sun and so quickly
passing off the scene. And it happens, verse 7 says,
when the breath of the Lord blows on it. It's depicting the wind
that God would send in the hot summer that blows and intensifies
the heat on the grass and the flower, causing it to wilt, the
invisible hand and the invisible breath of God. And the analogy
that is being made here is that the breath of the Lord brings
to an end human life. It's appointed, and a man wants
to die, and after this, the judgment. And so, at the end of verse 7,
God says this to the prophet, "'Surely the people are grass.'"
You may know this with certainty, that all mankind is like the
grass that just withers and falters and fails. And this leads now
into our text in verse 8. He repeats and reiterates what
He said in verse 6 and in verse 7. The grass withers, the flower
fades. And it is so obvious now from
the text in the preceding verses that what man promises he can
never deliver, what man pledges he cannot keep, that everything
about man is just passing away, even his own physical existence. He is but here for a blip on
the screen of human history. Psalm 90 and verse 10 says, as
for the days of our life, they contain seventy years, or if
due to strength, eighty years. Yet their pride is but labor
and sorrow, for soon it is gone, and we fly away, no longer to
remain here on the earth, either going to heaven or to hell. Psalm 103 verse 15, As for man,
his days are like grass, as a flower of the field, so He flourishes.
And when the wind has passed over it, it is no more, and His
place acknowledges it no longer." This is true of individuals.
It's true of nations. It's true of empires. It's true
of everything about man. He is but a withering blade of
grass. He is but a petal of flower that
falls to the ground. The stark contrast is made with
the second half of the verse. We see God's Word is permanent. He begins with the word, but.
Do you see that at the beginning of the second line in verse 8?
Martin Lloyd-Jones says, praise God for the butts in the Bible. It indicates the total opposite
of man, the stark contrast with man, totally antithetical with
man, in juxtaposition with man. But the Word of God, what God
says, thus says the Lord. He says, stands forever. Man comes and goes and passes
off the scene. There is the parade of history
that has entered in its moment of time and then soon passes
off the stage of human history. But the Word of the Lord stands
forever from generation to generation, from century to century. It never
changes. It never withers. It never fades.
The Word of God never loses its authority or loses its power. It never expires. It never passes
away. And the reason for this is because
God Himself never changes. Malachi 3 verse 6 says, I am
the Lord God, I never change. God is unchanging in His attributes.
He is unchanging in His character. He is unchanging in His will.
He is unchanging in His purposes. He is unchanging in His salvation.
He is unchanging in His judgments. There is no change in God. And
James 1 verse 17 says that He is the Father of light with whom
there is no shifting shadow. And because God never changes,
God's Word never changes. In Numbers 23 and verse 19, the
Scripture records, God is not a man that he should lie. In other words, everything that
comes out of the mouth of God is unvarnished, unadulterated
truth. It is reality. It is accurate. And then he goes on, nor God
is not the Son of Man that He should repent. In other words,
God never says one thing and then has to change it. God never
says one thing and then has to alter it or amend it. We read,
has He said and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will
He not make it good? Those are rhetorical questions,
the answer of which is so obvious He does not even need to bother
to answer those questions. The answer is a resounding yes. God will make good on every prophecy. He will make good on every promise. God's Word, He Himself will back
up everything that He has ever said to us. In Psalm 119, that extraordinary
chapter or Psalm of 176 verses, 22 stanzas of 8 verses each,
there are multiple synonyms that are used for the Word of God.
It's referred to as the law of the Lord, the testimonies of
God, the precepts, the commandments, the judgments. But one of the
titles for the Word of God is His statutes. And the word statutes,
which is used twenty-one times in Psalm 119, means things that
are etched in stone, which are irrevocable, that are etched
in stone for all time. That's what the Word of God is.
It can never be amended or changed. Psalm 119 verse 5, "'Oh, that
my ways may be established to keep your statutes.'" In Psalm
119 verse 89, we read, "'Forever, O Lord, your Word is settled
in heaven.'" Forever. Whatever man says, whatever man
does here upon the earth cannot even touch the Word of God that
is settled in heaven. Psalm 119 verse 160, the sum
of your word is truth. In other words, when you add
it all up and you put your arms around the entirety of Scripture,
the sum of your word is truth. And every one of your righteous
ordinances is everlasting. It will never pass off the scene.
It will never go unfulfilled. it is everlasting. In Matthew
5 and verse 18 we read, Jesus said, for truly I say to you,
and whenever Jesus intended to underscore the importance of
what He was saying, many times He would say, truly, truly, I
say unto you. indicating that what follows
rises to a higher level of importance than other things that he said.
Everything that he said was true. Everything recorded in Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John Revelation is inspired, inerrant, and infallible. But some things that Jesus said
bring a greater weight, and this is one of those statements. And
in Matthew 5 verse 18, "'For truly, I say to you, until heaven
and earth pass away, not the slightest letter or stroke shall
pass from the law until all is accomplished.'" Now the smallest
letter in the Hebrew alphabet is a yod. It's like an eyelash.
It's like an apostrophe. It's just a little tiny, little
half-moon looking letter. That little smallest letter,
it's so easy almost to overlook it. and then the smallest stroke
is like a serif. It's like a little horizontal
line, for in our alphabet, what would separate a lowercase l
from a lowercase t is just that one little stroke, that one little
horizontal line. And what Jesus is saying is that
The accuracy and the immutability of the Word of God is down to
the smallest eyelash and the smallest little stroke that would
separate one letter from another letter. And none of it will go
unfulfilled, and none of it will be changed, down to the most
minute detail in what God has said, every inch, every ounce,
every letter, every word, every clause, every phrase, every sentence,
every paragraph, every chapter, every book, every testament.
It is all the Word of God, and it cannot be changed. It will all be fulfilled. In Matthew 24 and verse 35, Jesus
reiterates this, and He said, heaven and earth will pass away,
and that day is coming when God will create a new heavens and
a new earth, and He will burn up this earth and create a new
earth in which we will live throughout all of the ages to come. And
Jesus acknowledges that with this statement, heaven and earth
will pass away. this present earth and this present
heaven, but My words will not pass away." Even the planet upon
which we live is a disposable planet, and God will dispose
of it at the end of the age and create a new heaven and a new
earth, but His Word will remain on the books forever. In Luke 16 and verse 17, And
Jesus said, it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away
than for one stroke of a letter of the law to fail. Nothing will fail that is recorded
in God's Word. The sun will fail to shine, and
the earth will fail to spin. before any part of the Word of
God passes away. So, what does this have to do
with defending the faith? So, what does this have to do
with our conference theme, God's Unchanging Word? The answer is everything. The faith that we defend is an
unchanging faith because it is rooted and grounded in the unchanging
Word of God. And so, I want to give you some
action steps to put this into practice. I remember when I studied
under Dr. Sproul, the class that I took
immediately before sitting in my first class under Dr. Sproul's
teaching, I had a professor. who said, I'm going to come hear
you men preach one time, and I'm going to sit on the front
row, and 15 minutes into your sermon, I'm going to hold up
a big sign, and it's going to have just two words on it, so
what? And he was urging us, you've
got to get to the so what. I mean, you can't just give us
truth, truth, truth, truth. How is this supposed to impact
my life? What do you want me to do with
this? How am I supposed to live this out? How do I put this into
practice? So I can just see him right there,
holding up the so what sign. So I want to give you five words
that begin with the letter C on how we put this into practice.
And the first word is convictions. If we are to defend the faith,
you and I must have deep convictions about what it is that we believe
about the Bible and about the Word of God. We cannot be like
a reed blowing in the wind. We cannot be like the wave of
the sea that is tossed back and forth. And in the essential matters
of the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, His virgin
birth, His sinless life, His substitutionary death, His bodily
resurrection, His present enthronement at the right hand of God the
Father, His eternal deity, we must have deep convictions. about
the faith that we earnestly contend for, the faith that we believe. And we can't be stroking our
chin as we're talking to people out in the world and say something
like, well, it seems to me. No, we need to be able to know
the truth and have deep convictions in the truth and to be immovable
in the truth, that we stand strong in the truth. That's where this begins. And
this implies that you and I are studying sound doctrine. We're
studying the Word of God, that we are mastering the message
of Scripture, and Scripture is mastering us, that we can rightly
handle the Word of truth, that we are growing in our understanding
and our knowledge of Scripture. But as we are, we are growing
deeper and deeper in our firm convictions Thus says the Lord. And so, for you to be a defender
of the faith, you must have strong convictions. I mean, you cannot
be wearing Saul's armor. You cannot be upholding someone
else's convictions. You must believe what you believe
in the depth of your heart and in the depth of your soul. Number two. confidence. If you're to be a defender of
the faith, you must have great confidence in the message and
confidence in the power of the Word of God to explode in people's
minds and in people's hearts and to be able to transform them
when accompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit of God. With
great confidence, we must Uphold the message and interact with
people and have confidence that the truth will win the day. Not
everyone will believe. but those for whom it is intended
will. I love Paul in Romans 1 verse
16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of
God unto salvation. To everyone who believes, we
must have this confidence that the Word of God is the dynamite
of God. The gospel is the dynamite that
has power to change. That's why Paul was so eager
to go to Rome, to put the gospel up in the marketplace of ideas. Surrounded there in Rome by all
of the false religions and the ideologies and the philosophies,
Paul was confident that the gospel could blow out of the water every
other worldview. We must have this confidence,
that this in which we have deep convictions, that God will work
through the message and the truth that we bring. God will honor
the man and honor the woman who honors His Word. Third, contagious. As we defend the faith, as we
rub shoulders with people in the world, We need to be contagious,
enthusiastic about what it is that we believe. We need to be
positive. We must be upbeat. We must be triumphant about what
we believe. It's not only what we say, it's
how we say it. And we can't be on defense. We
have to be on offense and be contagious and for the
truth to spread like a fire into the lives of other people. There needs
to be a dynamic, a spiritual dynamic about our lives as we
are talking to others. We're not just trying to win
arguments. We're trying to bring people to the foot of the cross
and to bring people to faith in Christ. And that necessitates
that we be contagious in our faith and not be dour and sour
and flat. Number four, compelling. We must
be persuasive with people. It's not enough just to put the
truth out there. It's not enough to toss it out
there to people and say, you can take it or leave it. Here,
read this book and walk away. No, we need to be persuasive
We are to be urging people to believe the truth and to come
to faith in Christ. Paul said he wants to win men
to Christ. And for us who believe the Reformed
message, which is simply the biblical truth, we must also
understand that we must be persuasive and compelling As we present
this to other people, 2 Corinthians 5 verse 11, Paul uses a Greek
word, paitho, which means to be persuasive, to urge, to entreat,
to win someone over. And he says, therefore, knowing
the fear of the Lord, we persuade men. It's hyper-Calvinism not
to persuade men. It is biblical Christianity to
try to win people over to the faith, not to manipulate, not
to cross the line, but we must be after people to win them to
Christ and to win them to the truth of the Word of God. Listen,
when I asked my wife to marry me, I had to do more than a word
study on agapeo. and compare it with Phileo and
Eros, and that wasn't going to do the job. I had to be persuasive because
I had a bad product to sell. I oversold and under-delivered.
It was buy high, sell low for her, but anyway. But I had to
be persuasive with her, and I had to entreat her and plead with
her, and, will you marry me? We have to be like that with lost
people and people as we're defending the faith. We have to call for
the verdict in people's lives and be compelling and be contagious
as we present the truth to them. And then finally, the word cost.
Now we have to realize on the front end that there is a cost
to pay for being an apologist. It may cost us popularity. It
may cost us relationships. It may cost us a job. It may
cost us whatever it is that would be required of us, but we must
be willing to pay whatever price is necessary to put our chin
out there and to be out on the limb and to make ourselves vulnerable
with other people and to be willing to sacrifice, even be willing
to suffer. And isn't that the message that
we heard yesterday out of 1 Peter, as they are to give an account
for the hope that lies within them, that they must be willing
to suffer for the sake of the gospel? And so must we. I mean, we must be willing to
speak up and to receive whatever pushback may come, because in
reality, they're not rejecting us. We're just the messenger. They're rejecting God. They're
rejecting the truth and the gospel and Jesus Christ. Anyone whom
God has ever used in a significant way in the history of the church
has always had to pay a price. As you study church history and
just go century by century by century, those names that rise
to the surface, that define eras and mark seasons in the life
of the church, those are all men and all women who paid an
enormous price for the gospel of Jesus Christ. And they were
willing to contend, to earnestly contend for the faith, to get
into the arena, to get into the boxing match, if you will. and
to fight the good fight for the truth and to take whatever blows
would come their way. In my preaching Bible from which
I preach, you can't see it from there, but I always have a picture
of this man, John Rogers. He was born about 1500. He was
burned at the stake in 1555. He was the first Marian martyr,
burned at the stake, February the 4th, 1555, Smithfield, London. He wouldn't budge from the truth.
He helped complete Tyndale's first translation of the Bible
into the English language, serving as somewhat of a compiler and
an editor, and probably was led to faith in Christ by Tyndale
himself. And when Tyndale was arrested
and then strangled to death and burned and then blown up with
gunpowder. It was this man, John Rogers,
who ran back to where Rogers was living with some English
merchants and gathered up Tyndale's work and saw that it was brought
to completion. And he was a powerful preacher
of the Word of God in London, in that area surrounding St.
Paul's Cathedral. And he was a marked man when
bloody Mary, Mary the first, took the throne of England as
she succeeded her half-brother Edward, Edward VI, as the throne,
the monarchy went from Protestant under Edward VI to becoming strict,
staunch Catholic under Mary. And she put an X on the forehead
of John Rogers and told her officials to go after him. And he was arrested,
thrown in Newgate prison, having some eleven children, the last
of which he had never seen or held in his arms. He was told
if he would repent, if he would change and back off his preaching
of the one true gospel of Jesus Christ, then he would be released.
and rather than compromise, rather than cave in, he was willing
to pay the price, and he was willing to die for his convictions,
and he was led out of Newgate Prison to Smithfield. At this
time, no Protestant had been burned at the stake by Mary,
and everyone wanted to see, would this actually go through, and
how would this man respond? And as he was being led to the
stake, and by the way, they would burn their martyrs in front of
their church to send an intimidating message to the congregation,
this is what we think of your pastor, and this is what we think
of the message that's been preached to you to strike fear into their
hearts. And this bold preacher who helped
complete the first translation of the Bible into the English
language from the original Hebrew and Greek, the French ambassador
came to watch this and said, Rogers looked to be as a groom
headed to the church on his wedding day. He went quoting Psalm 51, triumphant. willing to pay the price. And
in the back of my preaching Bible, I have a wood carving of Rogers
strapped to the stake with the fires burning around him, willing
not only to live for Christ, but to die for Christ. That's
the cost that's required God probably will not require that
cost. He may, because times are changing. Society is changing. Culture
is changing. Are we willing to pay the price
for whatever it takes to defend the faith even unto death? After I graduated From college,
I had a degree in finance that would help prepare me to be a
Baptist preacher. I probably should have majored
in real estate, but anyway. After I graduated from college,
I went to law school. I thought I wanted to be a lawyer.
I worked for a very famous trial attorney in Texas, last man to
beat George W. Bush in a political race, and I thought I wanted to be
a lawyer. And I remember that first year, I would study case
law. I would arise early in the morning,
and I would stay up till late at night and read constitutional
law, civil law, criminal law, and your whole grade was your
final exam. And so, you went into that final
exam with some fear and trepidation. And after I had studied the law,
these cases, memorized the law till I was like a cup overflowing,
by the time I went into the final exam, you know what? They changed
the law. I thought, this is stupid. Now, we need Christian lawyers,
okay? And when you're in trouble, you
want a good Christian lawyer. But God was using that to awaken
me that this is not what He had for me, that I was not to pour
my life into a law that was constantly changing and subject to reversal,
that I wanted to pour my life into a law that would never change. And it was a part of the attraction
for me that was drawing me into the ministry and to pour my life
into this Word and to be used by God so that the message would
come out through me to the world around me. And it struck me that
what I was studying in my 20s, I would teach in my 30s, and
I would preach in my 40s. I would declare in my 50s. I
would cling to in my 70s and die believing in my 80s. That
what I memorized as a young man in my 20s, I would be preaching
now in my 60s, and nothing would change. Because the Word of God
never changes. It is the same from one generation
to the next. You know, I just flew back from
the Czech Republic. I've crossed the Atlantic Ocean six times
in the last five weeks. I've preached in Scotland. I've
preached in England. I've preached in Northern Ireland.
I've preached in the Czech Republic, and I've preached to men who
have come from Serbia and Poland and Slovakia and Romania and
all of these places just over the last couple of weeks. And
you know what? There's only one Word and only
one message to give to everyone. No matter what their culture,
no matter what their society, and whether it's on the upswing
or the downswing, we bring to them the unchanging Word of God. that is ever contemporary. And so, yes, the grass withers,
and the flower fades, and one generation passes off the scene,
and another generation comes, and kings come and they go, but
the one constant of history is God. and God's eternal purpose
and His sovereign will. He has never gone to plan B.
He has never gone to plan C. It is forever plan A from eternity
past. And when God speaks, He speaks
His unchanging Word that is immutable and irrevocable and irreversible
forever. the same. May God give each and
every one of us convictions and confidence to be compelling and
contagious and to pay whatever cost price is necessary for the
gospel of Jesus Christ. God bless you.