At the beginning of a New Year here are some rather interesting challenges we face.
The past few weeks we’ve been looking at the idea of CHANGE…
and the Challenges in our lives that those changes present.
Two weeks ago we discussed that even though everything and everyone around us changes – God’s love for us never changes.
When you get up tomorrow morning…
• It doesn’t matter if the bottom of the Stock market falls out –
God still loves you
• It doesn’t matter if you lose your job, home, dignity, even your mind
God will still love you just the same
• In fact, Romans 8 says that, nothing can separate us from God’s eternal love that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
• Not trouble
• Not persecution
• Not hunger, clothes or danger
• Not angels or demons
• Not any other powers
• Not height, depth, present or future
Nothing in all of creation… Nothing! You can count on that!
Oh, how we need to ponder that idea.
Last week, by way of my own experience and challenges in the change of my health, we saw that God’s love is constant and it is revealed through His faith-filled people who are willing and available for His use whenever and wherever they are called.
“Praise the Lord?”
So, again, this week, in the midst of an ever-changing world, politically, socially, culturally, individually… we need to have something strong, firm, unmoving and unchanging to which we can hold fast.
Something on which we can solidly stand while the world spins out of control –
we need to be in the control of the Unchangeable Word of God
This is a great reason to rejoice today… to know that God’s Word will never, never, never change. It is one of those “islands of stability” that we can count on.
• Even though the revisionists are rewriting the events of history
God’s Word will remain the same – Perfect and Holy
• Even though Scientists are making new technological discoveries and we can read about them daily…
o God’s Word – the Holy Bible - will never change
• While Wall Street fluctuates dramatically – and you can read all about it in the “Wall Street Journal”…
You will never go to God’s Word and find out it’s been changed ---- in any way.
You may make new discoveries – I hope you do
You may read something you’ve never read before…
God’s Spirit may reveal something to You – in a fresh new, instructive or invigorating way… that happens!
But it never changes!
In Fact, we read it together this morning in the responsive reading out of
Isaiah 40:8 --- God through His prophet declared.
“The grass withers and the flower falls, but the Word of God stands forever.”
How long is Forever?
The Word of God is Timeless… it is Eternal.
It never withers or fades… It’s always fresh… It never gets stale.
God’s Word is never, never “out of date”!
Some of you have been on one program or the other on “reading through the Bible in a year.
If you’ll read about 3 chapters a day
And 4 chapters on the weekends - you’ll read through the entire Bible in a year.
But those of you who have done that…
When you’ve read through it a second, third or fourth time… Haven’t you found that God’s Word is never mundane or Boring...
But that He reveals new and fresh ideas for your life all the time.
By the same token, if you are not in His Word,
You will be stale and spiritually boring – and most of all spiritually weak.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve been in ministry for years and years and years…
You can still pick it up and read it and it is as
Fresh and as relevant as the morning newspaper…
Even more so…
What an incredible thing that is… do you understand?
How different that is from the writings of men.
We live in an “information age” and so the things we humans write get so quickly out of date.
Our society is changing so fast – we’re making gigantic breakthroughs in
• Science
• Medicines
• Computer technologies and other disciplines…
That the text books on these subjects are many times out of date even before they are put on the shelves. You know that’s true!
Science texts – just a few years old – have within them,
theories that have already been disproven and
things stated as fact --that we now know to be false.
Because we just can’t keep up!
But listen to Psalm 119:152;
“Long ago I learned from Your statutes,” David says, “Long ago I learned from Your statutes that You established them to last forever.”
Notice, brothers & sisters, that the teachings of God’s Word are not meant as mere “temporary suggestions”
These are eternal principles!
Jesus said it like this in Luke 21:33,
“Heaven and earth will pass away, but My Word will never pass away. It abides forever.”
That’s especially significant when you understand that the Bible has been more criticized, more examined, more judged, more ridiculed, more analyzed, and banned and burned…
Than any other book or piece of literature in time.
Yet, in the history of humanity it stands
• more solid,
• more widely distributed
• more understood
• more believed… than ever before
as fresh and relevant than ever,
more available to people than ever before.
Let’s take a survey here this morning.
1. How many here this morning have at least one copy of the Bible in their possession or at your house?
2. How many have 3 or more copies?
3. How many have 2 or more different versions or translations?
4. How many have software with the Bible on it?
5. How about cassette tapes of the Bible?
6. How about Video tapes of the Bible?
The Bible is certainly available everywhere here.
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When Astronaut, Allen Shepherd was preparing to make his first space flight…
He was in a news conference and a reporter asked him
It was a legitimate question – the reporter asked,
“Mr. Shepherd, what are you depending on in this flight?”
Now, I’m sure that the reporter didn’t mean the question the way Allen Shepherd answered it –
but it was asked never-the-less in a way that prompted Allen Shepherd to say, (and it’s a classic) he said,
“I’m depending on the fact that God’s laws will not change.”
When you’re getting ready to go into space…
and when your survival and your return to earth…
depends upon all of these laws that God put into place…
and staying in place while you’re up there…
It’s pretty important to trust in the fact,
To depend upon the fact – with your life – that God’s laws will not change.
Now, That’s exactly what God has asked you to do.
He’s asked you to trust in His never-changing Word – With Your Life!
Physically, this is true.
God established these physical laws of the universe:
• Physics
• Chemistry
• Biology and all the branches of Science
They all study these laws to discover – what?
How they operate.
It’s like if you jump off a tall building – You will go down! Believe me!
You don’t need to try it – or test it – just believe me – You’ll go down!
It can even be determined how fast you’ll go down
And where you’ll land… How big a splat you’ll make…
Because the law of gravity has all these elements to it that can be
discerned.
The same is true in chemistry.
If you mix certain chemicals together, I’ll guarantee you they’re going to go Ka – boom!!!!!
Anytime you ignore one of God’s physical laws…You’re the one that’s going
to be hurt.
If you take your car out and drive it down the road and drive it into the side of a solid rock cliff……..
You don’t break the law…. The law breaks you.
That’s just true! Isn’t it?
And these laws do not change because God’s Word does not change.
The law of gravity doesn’t just work every other day…
or just in a fickle way.
And… in the very same way, God has established certain
• moral laws
• certain spiritual laws for the universe in which we live.
AND
He says these are the parameters within which human beings are to live.
And when we ignore His laws…
Listen to me closely now, please understand this one concept this morning
When we ignore the laws of God… those moral and spiritual laws…
We don’t break them… as much as they break us!
We get hurt… every time we ignore God’s moral or spiritual laws.
We hurt ourselves.
God didn’t set up these laws to arbitrarily be authoritarian and make us miserable…
No… Hw set us these laws because He knows what’s best for us.
And so when I ignore God’s laws… When I willfully disobey God’s laws…
The only person I’m really hurting is myself – in that regard.
Because all of God’s laws are for our benefit – All of Them.
In fact, all of our society’s ill would not exist… if all of mankind simply followed God’s moral, ethical and spiritual laws.
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But Do you know what our temptation is? It’s nothing new.
It’s the very same temptation experienced by Adam & Eve in the Garden.
Do you remember how Satan came to the woman, and he said, Gen. 3:1
“Did God really say… You must not eat from any tree in the garden?”
Now – first Satan misquoted God Word. Because God didn’t say that at all.
But Satan raised the question and continued,
“If you eat of any tree of the garden – you will surely die?”
Satan just contradicts the Word of God – and says,
“You will not surely die”
And then he went on to lead mankind into sin.
The whole idea was to cast doubt… to place a question mark upon the Word of God.
And he’s doing the very same thing in people’s lives today.
Satan comes to us in a myiad of ways and says ever so lightly,
“Did God really say that?” “
“Come on, you don’t believe he really meant it – do you?”
“Here you are an enlightened – modern day person – you’re more intelligent than that – aren’t you?”
“God couldn’t have meant it that way – surely not.”
There are many variations of the temptation of doubting God’s Word
But it comes down to just that ----
DOUBTING GOD’S WORD!
One of the ways in which we are tempted in that regard is this;
“Well, that’s just your interpretation.”
Ever heard that! You ever said it?
I’ve heard that so many, many times….
You try to teach someone God’s principle about this or that and
Because they don’t want to be submissive to His Word…
They say, “Well, that’s just your interpretation.”
That would be funny - if it we’re so tragic.
For when you see a sign that says: S –T- O- P
How do you interpret that?
Now, you may not obey it. OR
You may sort of – like some of us do – kind of slow down and slip on thru or whatever…
But everyone understands what the word S-T-O-P means.
It means stop!
Don’t go any further!
Come to a complete halt. It’s not a matter of interpretation.
Is there really any question?
And so it is when God says, “Don’t lie” “Don’t kill” “Don’t steal”
And so it is when God says, “Don’t dishonor your parents”
“Don’t covet your neighbors property or wife.”
What is it you don’t understand about “Don’t”?
It’s not a matter of interpretation!
He says, “Don’t gossip about each other”
You may want to discuss the word “Gossip”
but when you’re all finished with that…
He says, “Don’t do it!”
He says, “Don’t tear one another down”
He says, “Don’t lie to one another – and about one another”
He says, “Don’t envy one another”
When it’s all said and done, Satan is just saying to us,
“Did God really say… don’t?”
Another version of this doubting thing is to say,
“Well, I know that’s what the Bible says. Yes, You’re right!
That’s what the Bible says.”
But - That was for people back then. And this is now.”
Listen to me now - God doesn’t invent new rules for each gebneration.
The truth is eternal! The Truth doesn’t change!
And whatever was wrong in the garden of Eden, is wrong now.
• It doesn’t matter who else is doing it…
• It doesn’t matter who else says it’s O.K.
• It doesn’t matter what the public opinion polls may say
• It doesn’t matter what legislators in Washington may decide
IT IS STILL WRONG!!!!
Right is still Right and Wrong is still wrong
Not based upon what we think or say -- but based upon God’s eternal Truth!
Amen?
Listen to what Jesus said about it in Matthew 5:24
“Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice,he like a wise man who built his house upon a rock.”
Jesus is saying, “If you want a stable home – then you got to build upon an unchanging foundation… You’ve got to build upon the rock of God’s truth.”
If you want stability for your future… build your life on the bedrock of God’s truth.
But listen now… he goes on to tell us what happens if we choose not to build our life on his truth.
“But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice…
He is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.”
He says, when the storms of life come – and they will.
He doesn’t say “IF the storms of life come”
He says “When the storms come…
The fools Fall will be great!”
Oh, wouldn’t it be sad to go out into eternity – however you believe it to be coming…
but to die and face the justice of God and the judgment of a holy God knowing what He said….
But not trusting Him enough to do it.
And to hear those final words for eternity…
“Depart from me, I don’t know you”
I don’t know about you… but many times we just deceive ourselves – we just kid ourselves in to believing we’re doing what he said.
But God’s Word is true whether we follow it or not.
But there will come a day when the veil will be lifted from your eyes and
Eternity will be the only thing in front of you.
What will you hear?
