Turn to Hebrews chapter 13. I just have one verse, and it's a verse that's rich. I'll tell you this, preaching
and asthma do not go together. My asthma has really jumped up
and attacked me this morning. So I'm going to try to keep it
short. It'll probably be the longest message I ever preached.
trying to keep it short. But in verse 8, Jesus Christ, the same. I read to you in John chapter
1 about the Word, and in the second verse it says, and the
same was in the beginning with God. Jesus Christ, the same. yesterday,
today, and forever. We are headed into another change
of the seasons. Summer is giving way to fall,
and all the greenery is going to die. And it'll give way to
winter, and winter will give way to spring. And we will go
through these changes. We all have seen changes. We've
seen them in our health. We have seen them in our homes.
We have seen them under different circumstances. Change is something
that we know. We love change. There's a poem that goes swift
to its close, Ed's out life's little day. Earth's joys grow
dim as glories pass away. Change and decay in all around
I see. O thou who changes not, abide
with me, abide with me. There is one who never changes. That's why our message never
changes. That's why the apostle puts this right here in this
chapter, in the closing of this epistle. He says, there is one who does
not change. And since he does not change
the message, does not change. If someone comes preaching another
doctrine, don't receive it, because the message we have does not
change. The one we believe does not change. He is the same. That's stability. There is nothing more stable
than Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ the same yesterday,
today, and forever. Now, yesterday does not just
mean yesterday, Saturday, Sunday. This has to do with eternity. Now, you and I speak in language
of time. God is eternal. There is no time
with God. That's not even conceivable right
now with us. But we speak in language, and
Christ spoke in language, that you and I could comprehend. So
in yesterday's eternity, and today, and tomorrow's eternity, Jesus Christ
is the same. Time has no effect on Jesus Christ. It has a lot of effect on me.
It has a lot of effect on me. It has a lot of effect on you.
No day is the same. No hour is the same. Our feelings
are never the same. We feel good. We feel bad. We
feel happy. We feel sad. Our Lord is not
up and down like that. Now, this is not to say, let
me say this first, this is not to say that Jesus Christ knew
no change. When He became incarnate, what
a change. When the Word was made flesh,
what an experience. When He suffered on the cross
under the wrath of God and was buried, and then He rose again with having nothing to do with
sin anymore and went back to the Father, what a change. So
he knows something about that. He knows something about that. But there is this part of him,
his deity, who he is, what he did, who he did it for, where
he is now, that never changes. The covenant that I spoke of
the last two or three times I've preached. The covenant of grace
knows no change. There is no change in it. You
and I make up our plans for each day or tomorrow. You
know, we think we're going to live. We make up our plans and
we do this, we do that. We have to make changes. And
I've learned this in business. If you're going to stay in business,
you better learn how to change. You better learn real quick how
to turn and make a change. Because our life and our circumstances
change. But the Lord does not change.
He's not making up plans. This thing has been settled long
before the world began. This whole matter is settled
with God. He's just bringing these things to pass. But with
God, it's done. That's what it says in the Scriptures. With Him, it's done. But this yesterday has to do
with His eternality. Was He in the beginning? Was
the Word with God in the beginning? Well, that same Word is with
us today. The same Word. No change in the
Word. God said this, I am that I am. He knows no change. All that he was yesterday, he
is today and forever shall be. That's why we can trust him. Oh, you can trust this one. Has
he given a promise? It won't change. That promise
will not change. Jesus Christ is the same God
as in the beginning. The One who said, let there be
light, is the same One who came into this world and became incarnate. When God, when the Word was made
flesh, it did not change Him as God. He remained the same. It did not change His Godhood.
He remained the same. It did not change His deity. He's still the same God. He's
still the same Creator. He still has the same power.
When He walked upon the water, He said to the wind and the waves,
while the apostles or the disciples were there in the ship with Him,
and He thought it was going down. They thought it was going down.
He was asleep. He was asleep. There was nothing for him to
be worried about. And he said, oh, you have little
faith. Why are you so fearful? And then he spoke. Peace. Be still. And the wind. Just think of this
hurricane that's going on right now, the size of Europe. He just
says, peace, be still. And that would do it like that.
It would be still at His command. His power, His Word is the same. Becoming a man, being made flesh
did not weaken His power. He's the same. He's the same
in His power. He's the same in all His attributes. His incarnation had no effect
on His deity. And He's the same Lord. He's
the same ruler as ever. He's still the Lord of Lords
and King of Kings. He's still the same. He has not
changed. And He's still the same Savior.
He still delights to show mercy. He delights to show mercy more
than we delight to have it. As much as we delight to have
mercy. Lord, have mercy on me. That publican smote upon his
breast. Oh, be merciful to me, the sinner.
He wanted mercy. He delighted to have mercy. But
I tell you what, as much as we delight to have it, it doesn't
compare with his delight to show it. He delights to show mercy. He's
still the same Savior. He's still the same Savior that
calls sinners to repentance, calls the ungodly to repentance. He's still the same Savior that
heals the brokenhearted. He's still the same Savior that
lifts the beggar from the dunghill. He's still the same. He's still
approachable. He's still lowly. He said he was lowly in spirit.
He still is. He still is. Him being seated. There's a man seated at God's
right hand, the Father's right hand, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he's still approachable. You set me at a right hand of
some powerful person here on earth. You watch arrogance rise
up. I'm somebody now. He still calls
sinners to himself. This man receives sinners and
he eats with them. And he still does. He's still
the same Savior. His blood still has the same
power to cleanse, the same power to save. His grace is far greater than
our sin. It still is. It still is. He's still the same Savior. Still
the same love. Our love is fickle. Human love,
put it that way. Human love is so fickle, we can make each other mad enough.
I mean, we can, we can turn, I mean, you know, you can, someone
that you've known and grew up with, you can turn on them. But you know his love is not
like that. His love never will. He never will turn on his own.
Never will. You think he wouldn't do it?
There's enough, you let God draw his hand back, you let enough
stress, you let enough pressure come down on you, you'd be surprised. Be surprised. But his love, through all our
fellings, through all our stumblings, has never diminished one jot
or one tittle. Having loved his own, Peter said, I don't know him.
Didn't he say that? He denied the Lord three times,
not just once, and then said, what am I doing? He did it three
times, and it was not until the Lord looked at him that he just
broke and wept bitterly. And then he called his disciples. He said, you can send for Peter,
too. You tell him to come. His love for his people is pure,
strong as it ever was. And we are a motley crew. But his love is never diminished.
And then he's the same provider. Jesus Christ is the same provider.
Abraham said, the Lord will provide. Who provided for you now? Who
provides for you? It's the Lord. It's the Lord. If the Lord takes me before he
does Vicki, he'll provide for her. He's using me to do it now. He'll provide. David said, I have been young,
and now I am old. I am an old man. I've never,
ever seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. And
you never will. I told you Wednesday night, he
is responsible for me. He's the same provider. He still
provides for His people. He has never failed them, and
He never will. Whatever you need, He'll give
you. And what we need to stand before
God in glory, we have already been given in the Lord Jesus
Christ. We have it. He's the same Redeemer. There's no other Redeemer. There's
no other Savior. And his gospel is the same. His
gospel is the same. One of the reasons this is put
right where it is, note the next verse. After saying, Jesus Christ
the same yesterday, today, and forever, be not carried about
with diverse and strange doctrines, he's saying he doesn't change.
His doctrines doesn't change. His message does not change.
His gospel does not change, for it is good It is a good thing
that the heart be established with grace, not with meat, that
is the ceremonies, all that they went through, which have not
profited them that have been occupied therein. He's the same. The message is still the same.
It's still look and live. It's not do and live, it's look
and live. Oh, that's good news. That's good news. Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. That has not
changed. And it never will. It never will. And his doctrines
are still the same. God said he looked down from
heaven to see if there was any that was seeking after him, any
good. He said there was none. Where's
that written at? I didn't write it down, but I
know where it's written at. In the book of Genesis. In other words, total depravity
has been taught since the beginning. Man is totally depraved. That
hasn't changed. We have not become better by
education. We've maybe become a little smarter. We have things, maybe, more convenient. But by nature, we're not any
better. We're not any better than, by
nature, the people that God drowned back in the days of Noah. Is
that so? We're not any better by nature.
Human nature is still totally depraved. Let God draw His hand
back, which He does here and there. From time to time, you'll
see someone, some serial killer or rapist or something. God's
drawn His hand back and He's given us a glimpse of human nature. There's a woman that I know It
probably has nothing to do with the gospel. Maya Angelou. I was
watching a biography on her. And she said one thing that I
thought, you know, lady, if you really understand what you just
said. She said, I realized when I was younger that if a human
being can do it, then I can do it. No matter how depraved it
is or how good it is. If a human being can do it, I
can do it because that's what I am. Man is still by nature totally
depraved. It is still true that God chose
a people before the foundation of the world, gave them to his
son. His son came into this world
to redeem. He was made a curse, what? For us. Paul's writing to the believers,
he's writing to the Galatians, he's writing to the church there
in Galatia. He said he made a curse for us. He wasn't just made a
curse, then hoped that some of us would accept him. He was made
a curse for us. And then it's still true that
the atonement, his blood that was shed on Calvary was for that
particular people. That's so. That's so. And that's not changing. It doesn't
matter if he upset the whole human race over it. God's not
going to change. He's not going to change. And
it's still true, if He calls you by His grace, if He calls
you by His grace, by the power of His Spirit, I promise you,
you're coming. You're coming. You're telling
me that little old wiggly worm is going to resist the one who
said, let there be light, and there was light? That shows you how low thoughts
we have of God. If we think like that. If he
says to an evil spirit, go out of him, it's going out. If he says come, I'm telling
you, you're coming. You're coming. And then it's still true that
the saints of God will persevere to the end. They will persevere
to the end. They will continue. believing
on the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, they're going to stumble,
they're going to fall, they're going to sin, but they're going
to continue following Christ. The tenor of their life will
be after godliness. His truth never, ever changes. It never changes. Truth never
changes. What color is that paper? Verbatim, every one of you is
going to say white. Truth never changes. When you tell the truth,
it never changes. The message never changes. So
if you hear someone stand in a pulpit and say that God loves
everybody, well, something just changed. Because the Word of
God doesn't give us that. Jacob have I loved, Esau have
I hated. Now, if he didn't hate anybody
else, he sure hated him. So he couldn't have loved everybody.
He hated the workers of iniquity. It doesn't say he just hates
iniquity. It says he hates the workers of iniquity. In other
places it says in the psalm, I hate them with a perfect hatred. It's not a hatred of malice.
It's perfect. Truth never changes. It never
changes. And then, closing here, his promises
never change. I quoted this to you earlier
in Bible class. In him, all the promises of God are yea and amen.
Come unto me, all ye that labor and heavy laden, I will give
you rest. That promise will never change.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. That
promise shall never change. His promises never change, because
He never changes. He never changes. Jesus Christ
is that solid rock that never changes. Jesus Christ, the same, yesterday,
today, and forever. You can rely on Him. You can
trust it.