This morning's message is, I've
entitled, The Constancy of the Gospel. And our text verse is
found in Hebrews chapter 13, verse 8. Jesus Christ, the same
yesterday, today, and forever. And that just speaks to his eternal
nature. And it was interesting listening
to the Bible class this morning. And many of the scriptures are
near the ones that Mike read in the Bible class this morning,
we'll be using in this message and maybe in a little bit different
application, but all the All the threads of grace and the
gospel are interwoven, just as in our fabric of grace message
about the robe of Christ, how it was without seam. They all
touch one another. They're all connected. They all
accomplish the same purpose of the Lord there. in this times of change and things
are unstable, it would seem like we have this one constancy and
the constancy is Christ in the gospel. Today, earlier this week
we were talking, Norm and I, about that many in religion have
this view of the Old Testament and the New Testament. Well,
the New Testament contains the Gospel and the Old Testament
just kind of contains history and that kind of thing. And I
was just thinking of that and I was glancing through my Bible
here. that was edited by somebody that
probably doesn't know everything. And when you go to the back here
and it talks about, here's the outline of all the books of the
Bible. First you have the law, five books of the law. Then you
have the history. and judges, and Samuel, and kings,
and all those. And then you have the poets,
the book of the poets, and Song of Solomon, and Proverbs, Ecclesiastes,
the Psalms, those kind of things. And then you have the major prophets,
and then you have the minor prophets, and so on. And that's kind of
his view of it. That's what those are. And then
you get into the New Testament where the gospel is contained.
But really, when we look at the New Testament, they're making
a beeline to Christ and all of those Old Testament scriptures. And even Christ himself said,
search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal
life and they are they that testify of me. And that's something Norman
and I have always tried to emphasize and agree on all since I've been
here is that All the scriptures talk about Christ in some way,
shape, or fashion. They're about Him and His redemption
of the church. We'll look at some of these things
today. Many things, as we said, change, but some things are constant.
One of the constants that we run into in life and in the scriptures
is that From Adam on, everyone is impacted by sin. We're all
sinners by nature, choice, and practice. It's just how we are. Everyone in their natural condition
is affected by that. None are free from sin and the
effects of the fall. We have this pandemic thing going
around now, and it's kind of a result of sin. But equally true is the statement
that we read in our text verse, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday,
today, and forever. The word forever is kind of a
conundrum or redundancy word. you say today and yesterday,
but all that is encompassed in the eternal nature of that. You know that this is true as
declared by the Apostle Paul in the epistle to the Romans
and throughout. We're going to look at chapter
3 in particular today. And his application to those
he wrote to then, in that time, is just as valid now as it was
then. And it would have been just as
valid in the time of Genesis, any time, or whatever time happens
in what we consider the future. And the things that he's talking
about, they were first written by the psalmist and by Isaiah. I had asked Brother Craig to
read that from Psalm 14. Well, when Paul is preaching
the gospel, he's preaching the gospel from Psalm 14 in Romans
the third chapter. As it is written, he says, You'd
just be surprised how many times that, if you looked up in your
concordance, how many times is it written, as it is written,
or thus saith the scriptures, or thus saith the Lord. It's
a lot. As it is written, there's none
righteous, no, not one. Well, he just read that to us
from Psalm 14. That declares our nature in sin. There's none that understands.
There's none that seeks God. They're all gone out of the way.
They're all together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good.
No, not one. That's pretty inclusive. That
doesn't leave anybody off the hook. That just tells us something
that we don't like to hear in our natural condition. Their
throat is an open sepulcher. That's a disgusting, blunt way
to put it. Their tongues, they have used
deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips." Well, you
know, those two phrases come from Psalm 59 and Psalm 140,
verse 3. He didn't make that up. He didn't
say, well, I need to make up some gospel stuff today, and
this sounds good. He's just quoting what the Holy
Spirit drove the psalmist to write in various places. He says,
whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Well that's clear
over in Psalm number 10, verse 7. Their feet are swift to shed
blood, destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way
of peace they have not known. He plagiarized that from Isaiah
59, verse 7 and 8. The gospel is according to Isaiah.
There's no fear of God before their eyes. A quote from Psalm
36, verse 1. And he says, now we know that
what thing soever the law saith, those first books of the law,
the Pentateuch, it saith to them who are under the law that every
mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before
God. And it's just a simple way of
saying no one can keep the law. And if they say they keep the
law, they're a liar. And if they say they can keep one law, then
if they fail, they're guilty of all. And he says, therefore,
because of that, because there's none righteous, there's none
that seek God, there's none that understand it, they're all gone
out of the way. No one does good, they have no
knowledge of peace, no fear of God before their eyes. Therefore,
by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified,
for by the law is just the knowledge of sin. And you know where he
got that from? Psalm 143 verse 2. So this whole block of scripture
that he just got through preaching the gospel out of, he took entirely
from the Old Testament, from various Psalms and from Isaiah. And then he says, going on in
Romans 3.21, But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifest,
it's made known, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.
So he's saying, That even though all those things condemn us because
of sin and the fall, the same scriptures always bring Christ
to us. That's the solution. That's the
remedy. They're in the law and the prophets.
even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Christ Jesus
Christ unto all of and upon all them that believe for there's
no difference. He's saying the Jews and the Gentiles are all
the same. He wrote this to the Romans that
many Gentiles in that realm and he says for all have sinned. and fall short of the glory of
God. You know where he got that from?
Ecclesiastes chapter 7, verse 20. The gospel in Ecclesiastes. Being justified freely by His
grace through the redemption that is in Christ. And that's
kind of a paraphrase of what you find in Isaiah 53, 11. By His knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many through His blood. As he goes on to say
here in Romans 3.24, through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus, through His blood. So, we find that there
is no difference between the Gospel in the Old Testament and
the New Testament, and the Old Testament Scriptures that testified
of Christ. That's what the New Testament
preachers said. That's what they preached. There's
no difference. The gospel is a constant. It's
not something applicable here, but not there. And when the Lord
reveals that to you, you just say, oh, it's everywhere. Oh,
every week our pastor gets up and preaches Christ from Ezra
and Zechariah, and we just go, oh. Last, that fair mitre one,
that was just awesome. how His mercies are new every
morning, because we need them to be new every morning. Because
every morning when we wake up, we're guilty of some sin, some
malfeasance, and we need the mercies of Christ new every day.
So at the beginning of this epistle to the Romans, the apostle notes
that the fact that as unchanging as the sin nature in man, since
the beginning, so is the good news. The glad tidings that God
provided righteousness, satisfaction for his justice, and mercy by
grace through his son as his substitutionary death paid the
penalty for sin in the stead of his people." Isn't that wonderful? We're condemned by the law and
by sin and by our nature and yet he provides us the remedy
in the same almost every time you find they're coupled together,
they're There's never the one without the other. In Romans
chapter 1, we'll read the first few verses of Romans chapter
1. He says, Paul, servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an
apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, which he had afore promised
by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. He says the gospel is in the
prophets. in the Holy Scripture concerning
His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, which was made of the seed of
David according to flesh. So we learn several things there.
We learn that the Gospel concerns His Son and His death as a substitute
for us. And we learn that it's in the
Old Testament. And I just love what Norm said
one time. He said, you know, If we had
to go through this life and we only had the book of Zechariah,
or we only had the book of Hosea, or we only had the book of Ezra,
we only had this book or that book, whichever one we had, we
could find the gospel of Christ in that, and it would be enough. So let's look to what the Lord
himself said regarding this in Luke 24. And you're all familiar
with this block of scripture where he's been crucified and
buried and rose again the third day. These things have occurred
in time as we view it. And these two that have been
there and witnessed all these things, they're on their way
home to a town called Emmaus, which is about seven miles distant
from Jerusalem, and they're walking along, and they're just so despondent,
and their hearts are broken, and they just don't know what to
do. They just don't know what to say. And starting in verse
23 of Luke 24, it says, And behold, two of them went that same day
to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about three
score furlongs. And they talked together of all
these things which had happened. And it came to pass while they
communed together in reason, Jesus himself drew near and went
with them. I love that wherever two or more
are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them. Just
think about that right now where you're sitting. Think about the
reality of that. Well, that's a nice phrase. That's
something clever. of Jesus being in the midst of
you. And then we have these two guys that are communing together.
And there we find Jesus in the midst of them. But their eyes
were holding that they should not know him. And as he said
unto them, what manner of communications are these that you have one to
another as you walk and are sad? And the one of them, whose name
was Cleopas, answered and said unto him, Art thou only a stranger
in Jerusalem, and not known the things which are come to pass
there in these days? And Jesus said unto them, What
things? And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth,
which was a prophet, mighty indeed in word before God and all the
people, and now how the chief priests and our rulers delivered
him to be condemned to death and crucified him. And we trusted
it had been he which should have redeemed Israel. And beside all
this, it's the third day since these things were done. Certain
women of our company made us astonished which were at the
sepulcher early and they found not his body. Now he's gone. They came saying that they had
also seen a vision of angels which said that he was alive.
And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulcher,
and found it even so as the women had said, but him they saw not. Then he said unto them, If you
would have read the Old Testament, you would know. O fools, and
slow of heart, to believe all the prophets have spoken of,
because everything that occurred was written in the Old Testament. Ought not Christ to have suffered
these things, and to enter into his glory, and beginning at Moses,
Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Leviticus, all those five books
of the Pentateuch, the books of the law, beginning at Moses, and all the prophets, those minor
ones, those ones that are considered the major prophets. David was
a prophet. Beginning at Moses and all the
prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things
concerning himself. And boy, we just think that just
means just exactly what it says. All the scriptures concerning
himself. Not just, well, there's 13 messianic
prophecies in the Old Testament. Those are the key. The rest of
it's just history and fortune telling, blah, blah, blah. But
you know, all those scriptures. They are they which testify of
me, he said. And John would later write by
the direction of the Holy Spirit that Jesus was the lamb slain
from before the foundation of the world. That just gives us
an idea of the eternality of this. The gospel is not just
something lately. The gospel is something that
predated the Old Testament. The gospel is eternal as Jesus
Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. In Revelation chapter 5, verses
6 through 12, and chapter 13, verse 8, It's just a picture of Genesis
and Exodus of the Old Testament in a clear declaration of the
gospel of the innocent dying for the guilty. The Lord God
took coats of skin and made clothing for them. You know, in Isaiah chapter 61,
it says, He hath clothed me with the garments of righteousness.
And isn't that what we read about in Genesis chapter 3, verse 21,
and unto Adam and his wife did the Lord God made coats of skin
and clothed them. Those two verses are synonymous. This picture the Old Testament sacrifices
which spoke of Christ as they looked to him for salvation,
even as we look to him for salvation. In our thinking, in our time,
it hadn't come to pass yet. But it was as sure as the Lord
says, I am that I am. Before Abraham was, I am, that
it was done because John said, he is the lamb slain from before
the foundation of the world. So try to grasp that if we can. And that that's true, we know
is because Adam passed that on to his sons. Eve had her son and she thought,
oh man, I've got a son from the Lord. This is He whom He spoke
of that's going to crush the head of the serpent. Oh boy,
He's here. When he was here, he brought
a sacrifice, the firstlings of his flock, and made a sacrifice
unto the Lord. Where did he get that idea that
a lamb without spot and without blemish should be sacrificed
and offered to the Lord? And his brother, who was stuck
in the natural realm, the unregenerate realm, who thought his work was
equal, who thought his work was good, And there's been many messages
about this. He brought his own work, the
toil from his hands. He said, here, I think you should
accept these. I think we should talk this over,
God. I don't see why my things aren't as valid as what he did. And that's a common thing that
we find in religion. Everybody has their own idea,
and they say, my idea of God and eternity is just as valid
as yours. But those two things don't count. What counts is the one to whom
belong the issues of death. So, as we go through these Old
Testament scriptures in Genesis chapter 4, Abel brought of the
firstlings of his flock and the Lord had respect to that because
it was a picture of his son, of the lamb slain from before
the foundation of the world. Exodus chapter 12, we find the
initiation of the Passover, when the Lord was going to Passover,
and He said, you will take a lamb and you'll kill it in the evening,
and you'll sprinkle the blood on the lintel and the doorposts
of your house, and when I see the blood, I'll pass over you.
That's from Exodus chapter 12, verse 3 through 7. And verse 13. And we have a hymn
that kind of expounds on that thought, when I see the blood,
when I see the blood, I will pass over you. And that's what
we count on. We see God sees us through the
blood of his son. And so there's been no change
in the gospel in all eternity. It's exactly the same. It's constant. And that's one of the things
that we count on. We don't have to count on something today that's
not valid tomorrow. It was valid then, it's valid
today, it's valid forever. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday,
today, forever. Christ is the same age to age,
and man is the same age to age by nature, choice, and practice
in sin. Those two things are constants.
We can't avoid those two things. In 1 Corinthians chapter 15, again the Apostle Paul is preaching
the gospel to some folks there in Corinth and he says, moreover
brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which
also you have received, and wherein you stand, by which also you
are saved. If you keep in memory what I
preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain, for I
delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how
that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures."
Well, what Scriptures would those be? Those would be the ones that
we've read in the Old Testament. Apart from those that we've already
mentioned, you could look up in Genesis 3.15, Psalm 22, verse
1-31, Psalm 69, verse 1-36, Isaiah 53, 1-12, Daniel 9.24, 2.26,
Zechariah 13.7. These are not like the 13 messianic prophecies,
these are just quickly ones that I wrote down
that are typical. They permeate the Old Testament.
And he said, the next verse, he said, and he was buried and
rose again the third day, guess what, according to the scriptures. And specifically, those are outlined
in Psalm 16, 10, 11, Hosea 6, 2, and Jonah 1, 17. So those
three scriptures, they're pretty much everyone agrees about. Yeah,
that's what that's talking about. But there's many, many more.
But for sake of time, we're not going to go through all of them.
But it's the Old Testament. It's the scripture as it is written
according to the scriptures. that's so frequently preached
in the Christmas holidays is in fact based in eternity and
declared in the Old Testament and recorded as fulfilled in
the New Testament. Psalm 103, verse 17 said the
mercy of the Lord is from everlasting. The mercy of the Lord is from
eternity. It's not something new. It's
not something that He just came up with as a quick solution to
something. It was something that was part
of His nature from eternity. Thou shalt call His name Jesus,
for He shall save His people from their sins. You'll find that in Matthew chapter
1, verse 21. And in the very next
verse in Matthew 1.22 says, Now all this was done that it might
be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,
Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth
a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which being interpreted
is God with us. Isaiah chapter 7, verse 14, therefore
the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall
conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. The angel of the Lord preaching
the gospel from the Old Testament. And among the many things that
are overlooked there in that and other scriptures regarding
the gospel are things clearly to be understood but seemingly
not understood unless they're, as Mike mentioned, in the Bible
class. It has to be divinely revealed.
People can read things and they just... They're just words on
a page to them, unless the Lord intervenes and divinely reveals
things to them in the new birth. That a Savior was born, we all
celebrate that every Christmas. We all say, oh, the baby Jesus
came and lied in a manger, and everybody says, yeah, that happened. But a true understanding of his
mission is not. He shall save His people from
their sins. And we have to say, well, who
are His people? Well, Mike covered a little bit
of that in the Bible class this morning. But does the gospel
of Him submitting to death in their behalf extend to all people
indiscriminately? He died for all the sins of all
the world. Is that true? You know, in John, he was reading
from John 17. And again, our classes kind of
interweave here. And he read one part of John
17. But it's inextricably interwoven
with verse 6. He says, thine they were. That
tells you that somebody belonged to God at some point in eternity. Thine they were, and Jesus says,
and thou gavest them me. And he says, the purpose of you
giving them me, that he should give eternal life to as many
as thou hast given him. That's what it says in John 17
too. That I should give eternal life to as many as you give me.
You've given me. And he read a little bit from
Romans in the ninth chapter. And in verse 25 it says that
the purpose of God according to election might stand. He says,
I've loved certain ones and not others. But he said, I have loved
them with an everlasting love Therefore with loving kindness
have I drawn thee." And that comes again from the Old Testament
in Jeremiah 31.3. And Jesus says in John chapter
6 verse 37, the most comforting words that we could ever think
of, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me. There's
not going to be one left out. There's not going to be one missed.
He's going to intersect His Gospel and cause them to believe by
the Holy Spirit. Every single one of those. He's
not going to miss a single one. If He does, then He just wouldn't
be God. And Him that cometh to me, I'll
know why He's cast out. All that the Father giveth me
is gonna come, and when they come to me, I'm just gonna grab
them like that father, give them the big I love you hug, and tell
them, no greater love hath a man than this, than he give his life
for his friends. Think about that. Blessed be
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Mike read the Ephesians
1, the first few verses this morning. I won't read them again,
but I'll just make reference to He made us accepted in the
Beloved in verse 6. And we have redemption through
His blood. So we see by the Word of God that all of man by nature
is just enmity with God. We're just by birth, by nature,
by practice, by choice, We're at enmity with God. And even
when we say we're not, we're trying to get to Him by our own
methodology, by our own righteousness, by our own works. And that makes
us at enmity with Him because we're not receiving by grace
what He provided as the only remedy for sin, which is the
blood of His Son. You who were dead, Hath he quickened,
who were dead, and trespassed the sins of Ephesians chapter
2, that Mike referred to. So, in our natural condition,
we don't see ourselves heavy laden with sin, in bondage to
it all our lives. We don't see ourselves as blind
to good news. We don't think we're deaf to
the wonderful words of life. We don't think that we're so
crippled that we can't come to Christ. We think we can get there by
our own ability. But, you know, in our Bible class last time,
Jesus, He was interacting with those disciples that John had
sent to Him from prison. And He says, you go tell John
what things you've seen and heard, how the blind see. the lame walk, the lepers are
cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and to the poor
the gospel is preached. He just takes care of each one
of those issues that we conjure up on our own in our unregenerate
state. in our enmity against God, we
say we have all those things, we can do all those things, and
we don't understand that we don't and we can't. But He takes care
of those issues. The Father and the Son and the
Spirit have been about the business of overcoming these issues from
eternity. That's why we have the Lamb slain
from before the world was even created, before the first thing
was put together. Before one atom of this planet
Earth was in existence, Jesus was the lamb slain. And you know
in Jesus, he kind of informed old Nicodemus of that fact in
the gospel record of John. And he said, except a man be
born again, he can't see the kingdom of God. So, in religion
they say, well, you read this and you see the kingdom of God,
then you get born again. But it's just the opposite. Unless
you're born again, you can't even see it. And Nicodemus, he tries to rationalize
it by his natural view of things. And he says, how can I be born
again when I'm old? How's that going to work? I don't
see how that, rationally speaking, from an intellectual standpoint,
I don't see how that's going to happen. And Jesus said, verily,
verily, I say unto you, except a man be born of water and of
spirit, he can't enter into the kingdom of God, unless he's born
again. Born from above, that word really
means. Not in here it says again, but if you look that word up,
it says born from above. He says, that which is flesh
is flesh. It's not helping you. It's dead
in sins and trespasses. It's not going to help you. That
which is born of the spirit, that's spirit. Marvel not. Therefore, that I say unto you,
you must be born again. And he says, you know, the wind
just blows where it will, and thou hearest the sound of it,
but you can't tell where it comes from and you can't tell where
it's going. So is everyone that's born of the Spirit. And, you
know, that's what we believe. We preach the gospel out here
and we have no control over it after it goes out of out of us. It's the Spirit that takes it
and makes it effectual wherever it goes. So this message from
the Old Testament and both the New is come to Christ. In Isaiah, the first chapter
in verse 18, Here's a scripture this kind
of man kind of leans on it in his unregenerate state to think
that he has the ability to debate with God and say, you know what?
When I meet God, I'm going to tell him how I think things ought
to be. And if he doesn't agree with me, then I'm still right. In Isaiah 118, it says, the Lord
God Almighty is speaking and he says, come now, let's reason
together. Well, in our modern parlance
and our idea, that kind of, well, let's talk about this, let's
debate it. But that's not what that word means. You look that
word up, and it means to be right, and it involves a daisman. What
Job said, I need a daisman that can put his hand on us both.
Satisfy the justice of God, take care of my sin. And the person
in the middle does both of those things. And so that's what he
means by let's reason together, let's be right, but the only
way that we're gonna ever be right with God is through his
son. Though your sins be as scarlet, he said, let's be right. And
what will happen is, though your sins be scarlet, they shall be
white as snow. Though they be red like crimson,
they'll be like wool. Because my son, the daisman,
has taken care of those issues. And so Jesus says, come unto
me, you that are labored and are heavy laden, and I'll give
you rest. because unto Him belong those issues. Come to Christ,
and if you do, you'll learn that it's because
He's loved you from eternity, and with loving kindness has
drawn you, because that's what the Scripture says. You may think
that, well, I'm coming to Christ of my own volition, and I want
to, and that's kind of true. But when you become regenerated,
you're going to know that you wouldn't have come except that
the one who has loved you from eternity has drawn you with loving
kindness. The Lord appeared to me of old
saying, I've loved thee with an everlasting love and eternally,
you know, it's just not something, well, I'm good today. So he loves
me. He'd loved you in spite of yourself
just, and he loved you according to his own purpose. And for no other reason. And
he said, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee. And
Jesus said, no man can come to me unless the Father would send
me to draw him. It's the same two things from Jeremiah and
John. The Old Testament Gospel and
the New Testament Gospel. Jesus just saying, well that's
what it says in Jeremiah the prophet. No man can come to me except
the Father which sent me. Draw him." And he says, when
that happens, I'm going to raise him up at the last day. No ifs,
ands, or buts. So we're out of time. We've used
up a lot of time here. And we'll close as always. And for those that haven't been
around when we closed up our Bible classes and we usually
just say, be free, that comes from John chapter 8. verse 32
and 36 where he says, and you shall know the truth and the
truth shall make you free. And if the son therefore make
you free, you will be free indeed. And so with that, my friends
be free. And brother Mike, if you close us with a closing hymn.