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There are many ways to contrast the things of God and things of the world. Their USEFULNESS and their vanity might be one means. For example, the things of the world are useable only in this universe – sometimes only immediately. Perhaps that could be a part in our general definition of “worldliness” it is short-lived. Worldly things have value no more than a hundred years – at least to those of us who only live on earth for a hundred years. But the things of God hold their value throughout eternity. There are things which God may give us, which are temporal and temporary. But the things which come out of God Himself are eternal. When we spread the depreciation of something over 10 billion years there is no appreciable depreciation at all. And with the things of God, 10 billion years is only the beginning. The things of the Lord never loose their value. Christ said, “Labour not for meat which perisheth, but that meat which endureth unto eternal life.”

Another criteria for judging between the things of God and the things of the world is TRUTHFULNESS. The things of the world mock us laugh at us, lie to us. We put up money for some rainy day, but the acid rain of inflation falls on it and eats it up. We plan on a vacation that should be wonderful, but when the day comes someone is sick. The things of world promise far more than they can ever deliver. On the other hand, God is truth and everything connected with Him is true. “God is not a man that He should neither the son of man that he should repent. What he has said, shall he not do it?” “God is true.” and the “Word of the Lord is truth.”

And then there is the nature of their different ORIGINS. “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” Yet there are things whose source is the Lord. They are as different as foods prepared by master chief and what the sea gulls collect at the dump.

Then another criteria for comparing the world, the Lord, and all their possessions is their ETERNALITY. The only sort of things which the world can produce, at the very best, are temporary. “There is pleasure in sin, but only for a season.” “The fashion of this world passeth away.” The energy that our body needs, must to be replenished on a continual basis. “Heaven and earth shall pass away; they shall wax old as a garment.” But, on the other hand, the closer something is to the heart of God, the longer it lasts. Like God Himself, many things are truly eternal. And some of God’s gifts are not only eternal, but many of them are unchangeable and immutable.

Of course, GOD HIMSELF is clearly – eternal and immutable.

This is one the foundational principles of the Word of God. And this doctrine means that the Lord is without end. He will never die; furthermore, He will never change.

Jehovah is the only being with whom there is no variation or change. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” Have you ever meditated on that verse from James 1? God, the Father of lights, never ages, never weakens, changes His mind, relaxes or sleeps. And when the verse talks about a shadow of turning, it is talking about divine astrophysics. The Lord is the perfect sun, whose intensity, radiance, glory, brightness and heat cannot be eclipsed, doused or even muted by a passing cloud. Ladies, when your husband tells you that it is too late for him to change his bad habits, tell him that he better wake up, for only God is immutable. If he can loose his hair, he can loose his bad habits too. Creation is in constant change, but God is the same as He was when spoke to Adam or Abraham. He said to Israel, “I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” The Book of Hebrews says, “Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a 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.” And within the Trinity the Son of God is “the same yesterday and today and for ever” Hebrews 13:8.

Now, that is all fine and nice, but so what? This means that you and I have cause to shudder, my friend. When Jonathan Edwards was a boy, he was left home one Sunday while the rest of the family went to church. He was bored, and the TV wasn’t working yet, so he went to his father’s library. He found a little leather bound book with no title on the outside, and curiosity crept into his heart. He opened it at random and found that it was just an old Bible, but it opened to our text. He later wrote in his journal that this verse tore him apart. He was confronted with the vastness and majesty of the one true and living God. Out of that came the conviction that he had been fighting against this vast and eternal God. Up until then his sins hadn’t concerned Him, but in the light of this verse, he was overwhelmed. Then sometime after that, he repented before God in dust and ashes.

“By the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished” II Peter 3:5-6. One of the prophecies about the days in which we live is that scoffers will defy God to judge them. Peter argues that the God who destroyed earth in days of Noah – The God who hated the sins of Nimrod 6,000 years ago, is still God today. The God who destroyed Sodom, has not lost any of His hatred or His power against sin. Sodom was an idolatrous, and sexually deviate, rebellious city – filled with open homosexuality. The United States had better sit up and take notice. God sandblasted Sodom and its neighboring communities with fire and brimstone. And the One who sent hornets, driving the Canaanites out of the land, is still God today. The Lord who cast Jonah into, and then out of, the belly of the whale, is the unchangeable God.

God has never had a contract with men, permitting them to live in their sins and to still enjoy His blessings. He has never permitted a sinner to be saved from the punishment of his sins apart from repentance. He has always demanded a sacrifice for sin and faith to receive that sacrifice. And He will not change to make room for any of us. He is the eternal God, unchangeable and immutable in being and character.

And therefore it is to be expected that the WORD OF GOD should also be unchangeable.

The minute we separate the Bible from the Lord Himself is the moment that we are in heresy. That is one of the fundamental causes of false doctrine in the world today. You cannot read the Bible like a novel or listen to it like a documentary. It is the revelation of the heart of Jehovah and therefore must not be manipulated – taken lightly. Men go to jail for altering people’s wills and forging other people’s signatures. The Lord hath said, “Ye shall not add unto the Word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it.” John said in the last chapter of the Bible – Revelation 22 – “For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” You see God’s book is not a product of the mind’s of men. “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” “All scripture is given by inspiration of God.”

And the Bible is written from an eternal point of view; God knew what he was doing. This is why God’s Word is profitable even today “for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” How many men dig deeply into the sports page of the daily newspaper or listen regularly to ESPN? Plenty of men study sports, but how many read the sports page that is two weeks old? The Bible is different from any human literature because it is as real and important today as was when it was first penned. “The grass withereth and the flower fadeth, but the Word of God shall stand forever.” “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” “For whatsoever things were written afore time, were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.”

Pick up your Bible and read it, study, possess it, memorize it, and conquer it. There has never been a day when it was more applicable than today. And the best evidence of that is between its own covers – it proves itself. It is like the ocean when compared to the feeble streams of man’s production. And no one ever outgrows the Scriptures; it opens and widens with every page. God’s Word is eternal and unchangeable.

Furthermore, what the Bible says about SIN has not changed either down the years.

Sin itself is not eternal; it did have a beginning and an entrance into world – and it will have an end. When sin was first introduced to man by Satan and when it was warmly received by Adam – he died. From that day to this, the major results of sin have been the same.

Some of you might remember the mass-murderer Jeffrey Dahlmer from back in the early 90s. He sodomized, killed and ate parts of at least thirteen men. As punishment, the government promised to feed, clothe, educate, medicate, entertain, and legally represent him for the rest of his life. Families of his victims would have to pay taxes to keep Dahlmer comfortable – warm in winter and cool in summer. I’m sure that this type of punishment scares other mass murderers almost to death. But interrupting the government’s plans for Dahlmer, an another inmate beat the cannibal to death. A man may slip through other men’s fingers and not be justly judged for his crimes in this life. But he will never slip through the death angel’s fingers. There has never yet been a personal death penalty commuted to life in prison. “Wherefore as by one man sin entered the world and death by sin and so death came upon all men, for that all have sinned.” “The wages of sin is death.” “The fearful and unbelieving and abominable and murders and whoremongers shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.” The only people to escape spiritual death, must have a substitute to face that death on their behalf.

Who do think you are, to get away with sin? God has not changed, the Word has not changed, sin has not changed, and the sentence has not changed. Coat it with sugary titles and popular respectability if you like, but there is still death in the pot. If you die without salvation through Christ, you shall be cast into the Lake of Fire. That is what the Bible says, “The soul that sinneth it shall die.” “As righteousness tendeth to life, so he persueth evil persueth it to his own destruction.”

And Christian, there is no reason to conclude that salvation changes sin’s nature in you; it doesn’t. The Corinthians toyed with sin, and many died. Jonah cherished sin, and God brought him to the brink of death. Annias and his wife lied to the Holy Spirit and they were both struck dead. Your lust for the temporal things of this world, your greed, your pride, your covetousness – How can you think to maintain them and stave off the thrusts of God’s sword? “Can a man take fire into his bosom and his clothes not be burned?” No matter who you are, if sin rules your life, get rid of it; repent before it is too late. “Except ye repent ye shall ALL likewise perish.”

And that brings up a wonderful, final point, SALVATION hasn’t changed either.

It is only because God doesn’t change; because He is immutable and eternal, that we have hope. God does punish sin, driving His sword down to the hilt in the heart of the sinner. But at the same time multitudes have been saved by His grace. For example, there once was city, an average city, just outside of Bagdad, called Ur. Out of that city God saved an early relative of Saddam Hussein, by the name of Abraham. Abraham believed and trusted God, and it was “counted unto him for righteousness.” Noah also found grace in the same way. And King David could say, “Blessed is the man unto whom God imputeth not iniquity.” Saul of Tarsus was struck down to the ground and arose up new man in Christ Jesus. And millions of other souls have likewise followed these men in grace.

But God did not forgive them based upon any variable or sandy ground. He didn’t deliver David from his murder or his adultery because was King of Israel. He didn’t save Abraham because the man was a friend of God. The Lord didn’t spare Noah because he was a preacher. The Apostle Paul spent a lot of time making sure we understood that.

There is only one way to peace with God, and that is through the Lord Jesus Christ. “In Christ we have redemption through his blood, The forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace. “Christ has been exalted to be a prince and a saviour, for to give repentance and forgiveness of sin.” Oh, but David, Abraham and Noah lived before Christ was ever born, “Preacher, how can you say that salvation has never changed.” Yes, those men and thousands like them lived before the death of the Saviour. But each of them believed God and that faith was credited to them for righteousness. They were “justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.” That is, those men were saved by Jesus’ blood, applied by faith, just as it is today. And in like manner God will save you if only you repent and receive Christ as your Lord and Saviour. “Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses” Acts 13:38-39.

In the light of the eternality of God and your own soul – In the light of sin and it’s eternal judgmentWhere does your faith and hope reside this morning? I can tell upon based upon the eternal, unchangeable Word of God ‘He that hath the son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” “He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life, and he that believeth not shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.”