Alright brethren, let's go back
to Psalm 102. I want to speak on the subject of our immutable
Savior. Now, when we looked at this Psalm,
we saw some shadows of Christ speaking and spoke about it in
places. But I want to go back and read
it, just some of it, to you again. And I want you just to hear Christ
speaking. Hear Him in Gethsemane. Hear Him on the cross. And listen
here in verse 1 through 5. He says, Hear my prayer, O Lord.
You see, it's the prayer of the afflicted. When He's overwhelmed,
Christ is the afflicted. He said, Is there any sorrow
like unto my sorrow wherewith I've been afflicted? None like
His. Now listen. Hear my prayer, O
Lord, and let my cry come unto Thee. Hide not Thy face from
me in the day when I'm in trouble. And climb Thine ear unto me in
the day when I call. Answer me speedily, for my days
are consumed like smoke. My bones are burned as a hearth.
My heart is smitten and withered like grass so that I forget to
eat my bread. By reason of the voice of my
groaning, my bones cleave to my skin. Now look down here at
verse 12. This is perfect confidence, perfect
faith in God as He served the Father. He says, but thou, O
Lord, shalt endure forever, and thy remembrance unto all generations. Thou shalt arise and have mercy
upon Zion for the time to favor her, yea, the set time has come.
He said down in verse 17, He will regard the prayer of the
destitute and not despise their prayer. He's the perfectly destitute
on the cross. Verse 19, For he hath looked
down from the height of his sanctuary, from heaven did the Lord behold
the earth, to hear the groaning of the prisoner. That, like we
saw this morning, Christ is the Son of Man, representing all
the elect sons of men. He was the prisoner. representing
all God's elect prisoners. And God heard thee prisoner,
and He loosed those that are appointed to death to declare
the name of the Lord in Zion and His praise in Jerusalem.
It's all for His glory. Now, here's our text, and I want
you to hear Christ speaking again. Look down here in verse 23. Hear
Christ speaking. He weakened my strength in the
way. He shortened my days. I said, oh my God, take me not
away in the midst of my days. Thy years are throughout all
generations. Our Lord Jesus was a real man
and he went to the cross at the age of 33. He felt the sorrow of his days
being shortened just the same as you would if your days were
shortened with some disease. He knows that. If you get word
that you have a disease and your life's fixing to be over and
you're young, our Lord's been there. He's touched with everything
we've been through. And He really did feel this way. He was touched with all the filling
of our firmities, yet without sin. But never, ever look upon
the Lord Jesus Christ as a helpless victim on the cross. Don't ever
do that. Our Lord was in full control
on that cross. He was submitted to the Father
in perfect faith, but He was in full control. And I want you
now to hear Him as the conquering God of glory. He's the Son of
God, He's the Son of Man. Now to see this, the word changes
now. Now listen, we just heard Christ
speaking. Now you're going to hear God
speak to Christ. Now listen, verse 25. This is
God speaking to the Lord Jesus. Of old hast thou 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 shall have no end. The children of thy servants
shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee.
See, that was the Father's answer to Christ saying, my days are
cut short. That was His answer. That was
God's answer to Him. He said, you laid the foundation
of the earth. He said, all these things, you're
going to fold them up and change them, but you're going to remain.
Let me show you that. Go to Hebrews chapter 1. I'll
show you that this is God speaking to the Lord Jesus. Hebrews chapter
1. Our Lord is saying here that
God had spoken different times in the past. He's speaking in
these last days to us by His Son. And He gets down to verse
8. He's talking about how Christ
is greater than the angels. And in verse 8, He said, Unto
the Son, He saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. A
scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy kingdom. This
is what God the Father said to Christ Jesus. He said to the
Son, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. He said, verse 9, Thou
hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity. Therefore God,
even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above
thy fellows. He loved righteousness and hated
iniquity. That was Christ who killed Cain
because he came with the works of his hands. That was him that
received Abel because he came in the blood of a lamb that typified
him. That was Christ who destroyed the old world with a flood and
saved eight in the ark. He loved righteousness and hated
iniquity. That's Christ who worked judgment
throughout all the old covenant and is working it right now in
the midst of this earth. That's what God's saying. You
love righteousness and hated iniquity. God, even thou God's
anointing, we're all of gladness above thy fellows. Now watch.
Here it is. And thou, Lord, in the beginning
has laid the foundation of the earth and the heavens are the
works of thine hands. They shall perish, but thou remainest.
They all shall wax old as doth the garment, and as a vesture
shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed, but thou
art the same, and thy years shall not fail. Which of the angels
did he ever say that to? Which of them did he say, sit
on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool?
So he's showing here Christ is God eternal. That's who he is. He's God immutable. He's God
everlasting. So this is what I want you to
see first. Now go back to our text and we'll take this a little
at a time. Yes, we're thankful Christ went
to the cross. We're thankful he became a man
and could bear our sin and bear the curse and condemnation of
the law. But this is also what we're grateful for. He's eternal
God. He's eternal God. Look here in
verse 25. He said, Of old hast thou laid
the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work
of thy hands. The Lord Jesus, that One who laid down His life
for His people on the cross, is the Creator of all things. He laid the foundation of the
earth. Of old He laid the foundation
of the earth, the heavens are the works of His hands. You're
familiar with this. Let me give you Colossians 1.15.
Christ is the image of the invisible God. He's the firstborn of every
creature. By Him were all things created
that are in heaven, that are in earth, visible and invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.
All things were created by Him and for Him. He's before all
things, and by Him all things consist. And here's the good
news, and He's the head of the body, the church. This one who
is so He's God, all-powerful, eternal, and He's the head of
the church. You're His body. You're His body. God the Father
trusted the whole work into Christ's hands. So much so that the Son
created this heavens and this earth. I'm not saying He did
it without the Father and the Spirit, but Christ created the
heaven and the earth. And everything within it, He
created it. And He's the one who's going
to create the new heavens and the new earth by His precious
blood. It's all going to be His creation.
All be His creation. And that one who suffered on
the cross, He's not only eternal God, He's immutable God. He's
immutable God. He does not change. Look here
at verse 26. All these things He created,
they shall perish, but thou shalt endure. Yea, all of them shall
wax old like a garment, and as a vest thou shalt change them,
and they shall be changed, but thou art the same, and thy years
shall have no end. This earth and these heavens,
they're going to perish. This earth, it seems so stable,
don't it? It just seems like it's been
here for so long it'll be here forever. Nope. It's waxing old. It's waxing
old. That's what he says there. He
says they gonna wax old like a garment. This earth waxing
old like a garment. This earth and nothing in it
is going to last. Every passing year, it's waxing
old like a garment. And one day, just like we take
off a vest or you take off a garment and you fold it up, the Lord
Jesus is going to change everything. He's going to fold it up. Isaiah
34 verse 4 says, The heavens shall be rolled together like
a scroll. That's a big God, isn't it? He
rolled it out like a curtain, it says. Can't He roll it up
like a scroll? Our sovereign Redeemer is the
one that's going to do it. As a vesture shalt thou change
them, and they shall be changed. Here's a blessing. Here's a blessing.
The same One who laid down His life on the cross. The same One
who laid down His life on the cross. That same One who accomplished
your redemption, child of God. Who poured out His blood for
you, child of God. He's eternal God, immutably,
unchangeable, ruling everything in this world for you. That's
who He is. The absolute controller of all
creation. He is not dependent on sinners. He is not dependent upon a sinner.
In Him, we move and live and have our being. He's not dependent
on us. He's not trying to do one thing.
He's the potter, we're the clay. He molds us as He will, and fashions
us as He will. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the
true God. He's the Most High. He's the
Supreme God over all. That's who He is. That men may
know that Thou, whose name is Jehovah, are the Most High over
all the earth. That's who Jesus Christ is. He's
Jehovah, the Most High over all. God bless forever. Believe on
Him and cast your care on Him. Whatever trouble you're in, if
you see your sins and your sins are just so devastating that
you think there's no, absolutely no way you could be forgiven
and received of God, that's so in yourself, you can't. But if
you come to Christ and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and
put all the care of your eternal soul and trust it into His hand
to save you, He will provide the righteousness you need. He
will save you. And if you're in any trouble,
any trial, or whatever you're going through in this world,
don't know this. He sent it. He's working His
will in. Here's His will in. To make you
know your grass, that you can't accomplish a thing. And to make
you know He's God. Ruling everything, holding you
up, like you hold an eyelash on the tip of your finger. He's
holding you up. and He's ruling everything for
your good. Go to Him. Cast it on Him. Believe
on Him. I've been preaching this to you
for 15 years. My message ain't going to change
just because I've fallen. I'm going to preach the same
message to you because it's so. Though everything in this heaven
and earth is going to be folded up, our Lord Jesus Christ is
the same yesterday, today, and forever. He said there, but thou
shalt endure. They're going to be all folded
up, but thou shalt endure. But thou art the same, and thy
gifts shall have no end. What does it mean, thou shalt
endure? It declares He's eternal. It means He's lasting. He's eternal. It means He was before all things
and He still is. He's the great I Am. That's who
He is. That's who the God-man mediator
is. He's the fullness of God. Thou
art the same. That declares He's constant.
He's constant. There's no variableness with
Him. We're hot one minute, cold the next. Lukewarm the next. Our love is warm and hot and
then it's cold. Not His. Not His. When you was
that baby polluted in your blood, His love did not vary for you. Not for one of His elect people.
Not a bit. When you sinned a day, and if
you could see how bad it was, you'd fall on your face and quit
condemning anybody. His love ain't varied towards
you. Not at all. I'm the Lord, I change not. That's
what He said. Thy years shall have no end. That means Christ is everlasting. He's everlasting. Now, you think
of the changes that you've seen in your lifetime. Think of the
changes you've seen. Just think of what cars looked
like in the 70s and look at what they look like now. These cars
now look like what you saw in a popular mechanics magazine
back in the 70s or 80s and thought nobody will ever drive anything
that looks like that. That's what they look like. You
remember seeing those futuristic cars? That's what they look like.
Think of how much you've seen change in your lifetime. Think
of how many people you've seen live and die in your lifetime.
My great-great-grandfather, I knew all my grandparents and knew
all my great-grandparents except for two and spent a lot of time
with them, a lot of time with them. And my great-grandfather
was born in 1898 and he died in 1986. Think of what he saw. Think of the changes he saw in
his life. Think of how many people He saw
live and die. And yet, since the very beginning,
since God made the first man, since Christ made the first man,
throughout all time to the cross, since the cross, throughout all
your time on this earth and all the changes you've seen, He's
been constantly the same with no verbalness. Not any. Doesn't that just make your heart
rejoice that you know you have a God who can't be changed and
will never change, especially when you know that so in His
regard for you? Isn't that a blessing? Isn't
that a blessing? Man's finite, he's changing,
he's mortal. Psalm 102, 11, my days are like
a shadow that declineth, I'm withered like grass. That's us. Christ our Redeemer is infinite,
He's immutable, He's immortal. Verse 12, Thou, O Lord, shall
endure forever. That's who He is. Adam was in
the best state a man's ever been in when he was in the garden
before the fall. The best state. And do you know
what the scripture says? Man at his best state is altogether
vanity. Adam in the garden was at his
best state. That's man's best state in the
garden, Adam. Altogether vanity. Why? Because
left to his will, he sinned and plunged the whole mankind into
sin and death. That's you and me. In a perfect
environment, what do you think you're going to do in this environment?
We can't boast, can we? He was not sinful, but he was
mutable, he was changeable. And left to his will, he sinned
and he led the world into sin. The order of man the order of
man and the whole of creation came under God's curse because
of what Adam did. Now we're subject to diseases,
now our bodies become weaker and weaker and weaker, now the
earth and all creation is waxing old, it's under the curse, the
animals kill each other, everything is touched with the scars of
sin and death, the curse, everything. The strongest of men are mutable.
They're just mutable. The strongest of men are mutable,
inwardly and outwardly, spiritually and physically. Our minds, our
affections change, our devotion, our obedience, our worship varies. We're not always fervent in spirit.
Sometimes we are destitute. where the grass of the field,
which flourished just a little while, and we bloom, and the
blooms fall off, and we wither and die. Psalm 103, 15, we saw
this last time. As for man, his days are as grass,
as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. James says, you
know not what shall be on tomorrow. You say, I will, I'll go do this,
I'll go do that, I will. You don't know what's on tomorrow.
What is your life? It's a vapor. It appears for
a little time and then it vanishes away. The voice said, cry, what
do you say? All flesh is grass. All flesh
is grass. The Lord blows upon it and the
grass withers. But the word of the Lord shall
endure forever. Our Lord reigns, and He shall
endure forever, and His Word shall endure forever. Christ
is fully the Son of Man, He's fully the Son of God, and He
endures forever. He's the same. His years shall
have no end. His word endures forever. It's
always the same. His purpose has never changed.
His words never changed. What he's declared from the very
beginning is that in creation, the way he created everything,
he pictured the salvation he purposed from eternity. In the
way he created everything, in those days of creation, there's
pictures of his salvation. And from the very beginning,
He declared, the woman's seed is coming forth and going to
bruise the serpent's head. And His Word hasn't changed.
His Word has not changed. His righteousness that He brought
in for His people is eternal. It's eternal. There's no variableness
with it. There's no varying in it. You couldn't pray to God right
now and God hear you if it was based on any righteousness you've
performed. It's got to be a perfect righteousness
or God can't receive us. And it's perfect and it has no
shadow of turning to it. There's no change in it. It's
perfect righteousness. Perfect righteousness. The redemption
he accomplished from the curse and condemnation of the law,
redeeming his people, it's eternal redemption. He entered in once into the holy
place having obtained eternal redemption for us. It won't change. His love and His grace never
changes. The gifts and calling of God
are without repentance. Look there at Psalm 103 and verse
17. The mercy of the Lord is from
everlasting to everlasting. If He gave you a fear of Him
so that you believe Him and trust Him and follow Him, His mercy
toward you, that same mercy that gave you that fear, it's from
everlasting to everlasting. From everlasting to everlasting.
Let me ask you this, does your fear of the Lord change? It does,
doesn't it? It does, doesn't it? Sometimes
you bow to sin. But does His mercy toward you
change? Never. Never. He is unchangeable in His power. Unchangeable in His power. His
power never changes. He rules His creation. He rules
His creatures. He's the Lord of hosts. That
means everything He's created, animate and inanimate, everything
He's made is doing His bidding. everything. He's operating it
all. Everything is working at his
disposal. Look there at the end of Psalm 103. This is what he's
talking about right here. He says, the Lord hath prepared
his throne in the heavens, his kingdom rule over all. Bless
the Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his
commandments, hearkening to the voice of his word. They're all
ministering spirits, doing his will. Bless ye the Lord, all
his hosts, that's who he's calling his ministers, that do his pleasure.
Everything he's made is doing his pleasure by his will. and
He gives you grace to be able to say, bless the Lord, oh my
soul. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that
amazing? This One who controls everything,
He controls things you've never even laid your eyes on and have
no comprehension of. You know there's places in the
ocean we've never even been to? We're trying to go out to space,
we haven't even been to some places on this earth. And won't ever. And there's creatures there that
we just don't know anything about. So I mean, you probably will
never see. He rules all those. And they're accomplishing His
purpose too. Everything is. All are His ministers working
His works. And yet this same one has given you grace in your
heart so you can say, bless the Lord, O my soul. He's our God, He's our Savior,
He's the only one who is Himself immutable and unchangeable. In
His nature, in His perfections, in His purposes, in His love
toward His people, it's all unchangeable. And that means His covenant blessings
and His promises that He's made to His people will never change. Before the mountains were brought
forth, forever Thou hast formed the earth and the world, even
from everlasting to everlasting. Thou art God. The Lord's good,
His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endureth to all generations. The counsel of the Lord standeth
forever, the thoughts of His heart to all generations. Whoever
He chose to save, He's going to save them. And those He's
called, He's going to keep them. And He will not lose one of them. His purpose can't be frustrated.
His word doesn't change. His blessings, His promises to
His people are unchangeable. Now lastly, what's this mean
for God's people? What's this mean for you and
me? For those He brings to believe on Christ, to trust our eternal
souls into His hands. What's it mean for you? It guarantees
us that He shall have mercy on His people at His set time. Look
back up there at verse 13. We learn this by looking to Christ.
This happened to Christ on the cross. Thou shalt arise and have
mercy upon Zion for the time to favor her, yea, the set time
is come. You have dear lost loved ones
that you pray for, that you hope the Lord will save. Will you
have this assurance? I'd rather know this than anything
else. If God chose them, He has set the time when He's going
to come to them. Just like He came to that infant
in that field and it will be the season of love and He'll
put His skirt over them and He'll make them know Him. That gives
me great confidence. He's going to do that to all
His people. We have that confidence toward our loved ones that we
want to see brought home to Him. Do you have brethren who suffer? Brethren who suffer? God has
set the time when He will arise and have mercy on His people.
Through every time of trouble, He has the set time. He has the
set time, and He knows it, and that's when He'll favor Zion,
His elect, His people. And He set the time before the
world was made, and nothing's gonna change it. Isn't that a
blessing to know every aspect of your life was set in order
before the world was made? He set the bounds. He set the
time you're gonna die. He set every, we're running the
race set before us, set before us. He set every obstacle in
it, every hurdle, everything on this track we're running,
he set it. And he has the time appointed when he will come and
have favor on his child when you suffer. That gives you comfort
when you're suffering to know, Lord, you know the time. You
have a time set. I'm trusting you. If you have that attitude, he
brought you to the set time. That's what he sends it for,
is to make us say, not my will, but your will be done, Lord. And as we saw last time, it guarantees
us that He will regard the cry of His people because He doesn't
change. He will regard the cry of His people. Verse 17, He will
regard the prayer of the destitute and not despise their prayer.
Just look to Christ. Look to Christ on the cross.
There He was, hanging there. No sorrow like His sorrow. Hanging
there. Did the Lord hear His prayer?
The Lord heard him. He cried out with strong crying
and tears, and he was heard. He was heard. He feared God. He trusted God perfectly, and
God heard him. God heard him. And for his sake,
God's going to hear his people. Verse 19, He looked down from
the height of his sanctuary from heaven, did the Lord behold the
earth, to hear the groaning of the prisoner, to loose those
that are appointed to death, to declare the name of the Lord
in Zion, and His praise in Jerusalem. See, if He doesn't set you free,
If he doesn't come and set free that unregenerate, religious,
proud sinner that thinks he's pleasing God. If he doesn't set
him free, God won't bring glory and praise to his name that he's
determined to do. That's what he's doing. He says he's going to do this
that his name shall be praised in Zion and his glory be set
forth. That shows you he will, at the
set time, come with the gospel and save his child. And not only
that, those he has called, if anybody can plug us out of his
hand, or if we can be turned aside by anything, then his name's
not gonna be glorified. But here's what he can do. You
try, you try, you try not to be the distraction, you try to
try to take the distraction off your brethren, he'll make you
the distraction. He did that to Moses many times.
He did that to Apostle Paul, putting him in prison. But he'll
show you this. He can make you the distraction
and bless the Word anyway and show you, not only can you not
keep things from being a distraction, you can make the Word go forth
in power. But he can do it both. He can
do it all. And by that he shows you, We're
nobody. We're not immutable. We're not infallible. He is. And He's bringing glory and praise
to His name by what He's working. And look now, these Christ's
redeemed, those He calls to faith in Him, they shall continue.
They shall be established forever before Him. This is God speaking
to Christ. Now look what He says, verse
28. The children of Thy servants shall continue. and their seed
shall be established before thee." Well, who are Christ's servants?
It's you He's already called. That's who you are. We're His
servants. We're His ministers sent forth
to preach His Word. Wherever we are, together and
individually, you're His servants. He's made you His willing bond
servants by calling you. And here's the good news. The
children of Christ's servants shall continue. Their seed shall
be established before Him. Who's that? That's all the elect
of God that He redeemed. That's who your children are.
That's who your children are. It doesn't mean that all our
natural children are going to know Him. It means all of His
elect, that's who our children are. And this is a promise. They shall all come. They shall
all be called. They shall all be given faith.
They shall all give Christ all the praise. And they shall endure
forever too because of Christ. That's assurance for his believing
people. For those of you that are believing
on him, that's assurance, brethren. How do you know his words will
go forth and not return void? He's going to make it so. How
do you know you're going to be a servant faithful to him? He's
going to make it so. He's going to make it so in spite
of our unfaithfulness. He made heaven and earth. He's
the mighty Redeemer of His people. He's able to save them to the
uttermost, succumb to God by Him. That's what He's doing.
He's immutable, eternal. His righteousness, His salvation,
none can pluck us out of His hand. That strengthens the faith
of every believer, not to be greatly moved. Not to be greatly
moved. Can you imagine living, I know
every generation, and I think at every point in our life up
to this point, we've thought this is as bad as it's ever been.
And here we are again in this day and time thinking, man, it's
never been this bad. Every generation thinks they
live in the worst day they ever lived in. You read sermons from
Spurgeon or John Newton or any of the old preachers, and they'll
be saying it's the worst day there's ever been. But if you
live just today with everything going on today, if you didn't
know our sovereign, immutable, constant, never varying God was
ruling everything, Wouldn't you just be miserable?
I guess if you didn't know him, you wouldn't know the difference.
But I don't want to live in a place, in a world like this, without
knowing he's the king. And that king shed his blood
for you, his people, and redeemed you with an eternal redemption.
That's His command to us. His command to us is not whip
my people, whip my people. His command to us, you want to
obey Him? You want to glorify Him? His command is comfort ye,
comfort ye my people. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem.
Tell them that their warfare is accomplished. I've rewarded
them double for all their iniquity. This is the message. That's the
message He used to break your heart in the first hour if it
was really broken by Him. It certainly is. That's the message
He's going to use to break your heart when you sin. That's the
message He's going to use to lift you up when you're down.
That's the message, brethren. He is our eternal, immutable,
constant, never-varying Savior. That same one that hung on a
tree and laid down His life for us is our eternal God. And He
shall not fail to save you and all of His people. Don't forget
that. Don't forget that. Let's remember
him now at his table. All right, I'm shorthanded this
morning. Brother Art, can you and Brother
Adam pass the elements out? You are our Lord, you are our
God.