The Son of Eternity (Hebrews 1:10-12)

Kootenai Church

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And then you get to verses 5 through verse 14. Verse which of the angels did ye ever say, you are my son, today

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I have your god chosen? Again, I will be a father to you, and shall be a son to you. And when he again brings the first point into the world, he says,

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Let all the angels of God worship you. That the angels, he says, who makes his angels rinse in his ministries, they climb a fire.

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But of the Son, he says, your truth of God is forever and ever. The righteous scepter is the scepter of his kingdom.

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You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore, God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness of your commandments.

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And you, Lord, in the beginning and at the end of the foundation of the earth, and the heavens and the earth are your hands. They will perish, but you remain.

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They all will become old like a garment. And like a mantle, you will roll them up. Like a garment, you will also be changed.

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But you are the same, and your years will not come to an end. But to which of the angels has he ever said,

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Sit in my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet? Are they not all ministries?

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Spirits sent out to render service to you to save the world's people here in salvation? It's not a given.

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Our Father, we pray that you would glorify your name. Both now and forever. Glorify it in us and through us.

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As we with attentive and obedient heart solicit your word. We pray that you would give us clarity of thought and understanding of your word.

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Send your Holy Spirit to be our teacher and our guide, so that we will work and be our focus in your glory for everlasting eternity.

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Grant that this be true in all of us and among us this morning. We pray to Christ. One of the fundamental and central doctrines of the

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Christian faith pertaining to work and person for Jesus Christ is the meeting of Christ.

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It has been the doctrine of the Christian church since the early days of the apostles, since the day of Pentecost, that Jesus Christ is holy,

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God and holy man, in human flesh and walk with him as he died on the cross and rose again. The deity of Christ is not something that has ever been questioned by true

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Orthodox believing Christians. It has been questioned by heretics throughout centuries, but the true church has always affirmed that Jesus Christ is holy,

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God and holy man. That is the doctrine of scripture. There are a number of avenues or angles, there are a number of ways of arguing this.

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One of the things we see in scripture is that divine beings are attributed to him. He is called the

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Alpha and the Omega. He is called the I Am. He is called the Mighty One, the Eternal God, the

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Father of Eternity. He is called the Bread of Life and the Light of the World and Lord and Master.

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Those are the Mighty One, those are the Mighty God. All of those are titles that are given to him that prolong properly to Yahweh, to the

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God of the Old Testament. Yet those titles are attributed to Jesus Christ in the Old Testament in the prophecies of the former days as well as in the

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New Testament. And not only are divine names attributed to him, but divine actions are attributed to him as well.

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He is said to forgive sin, to deliver his people, to redeem his people, to create all things, to sustain the entire universe, to rule over the heavens and over the angels.

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These are all divine actions. He is the one in whom we trust, the one whom we place our faith in, the one whom we believe upon, the one whom we are to obey.

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Those affections which ought to belong to Jesus Christ properly belong to Yahweh, to God.

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So not only are divine names attributed to him, but divine actions are attributed to him and divine attributes are attributed to him as well.

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He is said to be omnipotent. He is said to be almighty and infinite in his power.

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All authority has been given unto him as Lord Jesus Christ. Other divine attributes that are described in him are words like holy and righteous and just and pure and sinless and spotless and perfect and all -wise.

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These are things that could not be said of any of your created being. They can only be said of the preacher. So taking in the full panoply of what

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Scripture says regarding the Lord Jesus Christ in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, we are left to say that unless we are going to deny

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Scripture, we must affirm that he is only God and he is only man. And that he shares in fullness all that is the divine essence, all of the being and the substance and the nature of God.

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All that belongs to Yahweh is possessed by Jesus Christ. Jesus is a natural. Though he is fully man, he is also at the same time by his nature, unchanging and fully

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God. That's the teaching of Scripture. So all of those divine attributes that are said to be true of Jesus, perfect, holy, righteous, just, almighty, omnipotent, all -wise, etc.,

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are all knowing. Our text this morning in Hebrews 1 presents us with two more. The text that we're looking at today in verses 10 -12 of Hebrews 1 affirms that Jesus Christ is also, affirms his eternality and his immutability.

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Two more characteristics that belong properly to God, his eternality and his immutability. You're thinking to yourself, here goes

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Jim, using big words to try to be smart again. And that is true. You can find these two big words for him. Eternality refers to the fact that he has no beginning and no end.

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That can only be affirmed of something that is not created. It can only be true of God.

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If he has no beginning, he will have no end. You are not an eternal being. You are an immortal being.

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There's a difference between eternality and immortality. You are immortal. You have a beginning, but you will have no end.

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This is true of all people who have ever lived. All people who have ever come into being at some point in time, they will never go out of being.

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They will never go out of existence. So we are immortal, whether you are immortal, and you spend your days in eternal bliss in heaven, or you are immortal, whether you spend your eternal days in eternal destruction, awakening the grace of God in hell.

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We are immortal beings, but we are not eternal beings, because we came into being at some point in time in the past. Immutability refers to the fact that God has not changed.

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He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. In his essence and in his nature, he is entirely unchanging.

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Scripture affirms there is no shifting shadow within. So he has always existed in the eternity past. Before he spoke anything into existence, before anything else was, including the angels, or a single molecule or atom in our universe,

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God was. And he has always been. At no point did he ever come into being or develop, and at no point was he ever created by any help.

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That is probably the most difficult thing for us to recognize. Is it not? I can kind of grasp the idea of something that goes on forever, but something that has always existed, that I have a hard time getting my head around, because everything that I am familiar with that came into being at some point,

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I have never handled or experienced or been around or seen anything that did not happen to him. Everything in our experience came into being at some point.

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God is the exception. And if Jesus never came into being, if he is an eternal being, then he is

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God. If he is immutable, then he never changes. And only God, and that can only be affirmed with God, then

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Jesus is God, because he is eternal, and because he is immutable. And those are two things that are affirmed for us in verses 10 and 12, and that is going to be our passage today.

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These verses, verses 10, 11, and 12, are quotations on what we read at the end of Psalm 102 in our scripture reading.

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This quotation, I want to mention two things about this before we jump back to Psalm 102. Notice that this quotation in verses 10 through 12, this citation, is connected to just that brief word in the beginning of verse 10.

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In other words, he is still affirming what he says of the Son in verse 8. Of the Son, that is, of the

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Divine Son, of the Lord Jesus Christ, he, that is, God the Eternal Father, Yahweh, says of the

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Son, verse 8, your throne, O God, is forever and ever. So, the Father affirms that the rule and the throne of the

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Son is forever and ever. It endures throughout all generations. It sits on the eternal throne.

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And he further affirms in verse 9, you have all righteousness and gated laws, because this is the Father speaking of and to the

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Son. And then verse 10, and the Father, the Eternal Father, also affirms this of the

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Son in verse 10, you, Lord, in the beginning, made the foundation of the earth. So, verses 10 to 12 is another quotation of the

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Father speaking to the Son. In verse 8, it is the Father who says, your throne, O God, is forever and ever. In verse 10, it is the

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Father who says to the Son, you, Lord, in the beginning, made the foundations of the earth. So, there's a connection here, the reconnection with the word and.

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It's just another citation, this time from Psalm 102, previously from Psalm 45, and these two things are connected by this one theme that holds the citation from Psalm 45, verses 8 and 9, and the citation from Psalm 102, in verses 10, 11, and 12.

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The theme that unites those two things is this theme of being eternal, something that went on and on forever. You'll notice in verses 8 and 9, in Psalm 45, the

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Father affirms that the throne, the rule on the Son, lasts forever. In verses 10, 11, and 12, we see that the

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Father affirms that the person of the Son, the Messiah himself, lasts forever. You can't have an eternal kingdom unless you have an eternal king.

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You can't have a kingdom that doesn't have a beginning, unless there is a king who had no beginning, who has always ruled that kingdom.

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And you can't have a kingdom that will last forever, unless you also have a king, sitting over that kingdom, who will also last forever.

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So, if there is an eternal kingdom that goes on forever and ever, then there is an eternal king that goes on forever and ever.

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In Psalm 45, it establishes for us that this kingdom is an eternal kingdom, and Psalm 102 establishes for us that this king is an eternal king.

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The second thing I want you to notice is that all the citations, if you have that little piece of paper, have you been bringing this with you?

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A little piece of paper that compares the citations. We're in Peter's chapter 1. If you have that, you'll notice that this citation from Peter's 102, sorry,

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Peter's 102, from Psalm 102, this citation from Psalm 102 is the longest of all of the citations.

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This is three verses. So, this gets the most attention in terms of what the author of Peter's gives to us.

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Now, hold that in mind by way of introduction. Keep your finger here or your hand or however it is that you mark your spot, and let's go back to Psalm 102.

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Because you know how we have to roll. We have to look back to Psalm 102 and catch the entire context of this so that we know why it is that the author of Peter's quotes from Psalm 102.

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So, I'm going to give you as this is 28 verses long, I'm going to give you kind of a brief overview of the entire psalm and focus in on a few aspects of it.

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You'll notice the theme of the psalm is being before actually responding to that little brief, which is also part of it.

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It's inspired in the original psalm. It is a prayer of the afflicted when he is faint or is at his complaint before the

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Lord. Notice that no name is given there. It's just the author of the psalm. We don't know who the psalmist is who is writing this, but it is a prayer of a man who is suffering under some kind of affliction, and you'll see that it is physical affliction.

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It's emotional affliction. There's some spiritual affliction going on. He is suffering, and this is his prayer.

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In the first half of the psalm, verses one through verse 11, the psalmist is describing his lament, describing his anguish and his suffering and his affliction and how it is that he himself feels.

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Then, as is typical in the psalms, there is a change of focus as the psalmist from verses 12 through 28 focuses instead on the nature and the character of God.

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So there is in the first half this focus upon his own situation, circumstance, and how he feels in the midst of that and what he was enduring, and then he turns his attention and focuses upon God and observes some things about God which are of comfort to him as he understands who is the

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God is and what God has done. So there's a focus change between verses 11 and verse 12.

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So let's read first his lament, and you will see that this is the lament that anybody who has lived for any period of time and you're all on this earth can relate to this.

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Verse one, Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry for help come to you. Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress.

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Incline your ear to me in the day of my fall. Answer me quickly. For my days have been consumed in smoke and my bones have been scorched like iron.

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My heart has been spinned like grass and has withered away and deep. I forget to eat my bread. He's under so much suffering and affliction that the bodily concerns of daily demands like eating bread still continue to occur to him.

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He's fasting, but not because he's on some spiritual pilgrimage. He's fasting because he doesn't have anything to eat. He's just under such affliction and suffering.

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Verse five, Because the loudness of my groaning, my bones cling to my flesh. Describing physical anguish here.

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Verse six, I resemble a pelican in the wilderness and become like an owl in the wastelands. I lie awake and become like a lonely bird on a house top.

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And this is how he felt, like a bird sitting on a house top. Chirp. Silence. Chirp.

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He can cry. He can bellow. He can express his suffering. It is as if there is nobody to hear him.

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It is as if his cry is unnoticed and unheard. He feels all alone, like a lonely animal sitting on top of a house top with nothing around him.

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Verse eight, My enemies have reproached me all day long. Those who deride me use my name as a curse.

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For I eat ashes like bread and make my bread into evil. He recognizes because of his sin that there is some aspect of his own sin that has caused this affliction that he is in.

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He lives in a sinful world. Because of your indignation versus your wrath, you lift me up and cast me away.

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My days are like an olympic shadow and I wither away like grass. Look out in your yard right now.

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Is there any grass there? No, no. How about that snow? The grass in my yard is brown and turned green again.

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Last summer it just withered away. It was there one day, it was gone the next. It dries up and it's dead. This is how a psalmist feels.

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I wither away like grass. I perish. He's part of this whole creation that just corrodes under the curse of sin.

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He feels like the rest of creation is withering away, being blown away, being cast away from God.

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My days are lengthened like a shadow and I wither away like grass. Notice the change of perspective in verse 12.

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Before we get to that, those first 11 verses, those first 11 verses could be prayed by anybody who's lived any period of time that faces this point.

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You just feel like the older you get, the more your days are just lengthened like a shadow. And they're here today and gone tomorrow.

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You just feel like your kids are growing up, your grandkids are growing up and pretty soon you're just going to wither away like grass and die. It's in the psalm and it's in the lens in the book of Ecclesiastes.

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And then he comes to the conclusion vanity is vanity, it's all vanity, it's chasing after the wind. This is created such anguish of soul in Solomon as he observed the way of creation and realized that if he was just like the rest of creation, bound to perish, bound to die, bound to wither up and wither away just like the grass.

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And then look at the change of focus, verse 12. You will learn to die forever. The grass withers and I wither, but you will learn to die forever.

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He lives forever, on and on, endless ages, without beginning and without end that is our God. And your name will and your name to all generations.

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Now notice the contrast in this word, the name, between verse 8, look at verse 8, those who deride me have used my name as a curse.

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Look at verse 12, the name of the Lord endures to all generations. There is, there is I think and you'll notice the name of the

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Lord is mentioned in verse 15 and it's mentioned in verse 21. This seems to be an emphasis with the psalmist.

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He is describing his own name which is used as a curse which just withers away and vanishes and is quickly forgotten.

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Just like Solomon lamented in this life, we do all these things and our name is forgotten. It's buried in the sand for time.

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It is lost in history and we are remembered no more. That's the way of old men. And so it still ends with our name as we wither like grass, we're buried by the sand for time and remembered no more.

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But the name of the Lord endures for generation after generation forever. The name of the psalmist is quickly forgotten.

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And he did that maybe why the psalmist didn't name himself in the psalm. He's an unnamed man.

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Almost as if to say it doesn't even matter who wrote this. This is everybody's story. We all wither away like grass.

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Our name is forgotten. In fact, whoever wrote this psalm has been forgotten in history. We don't even know who it was. The name of the

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Lord endures for generation and generation. Verse 13. You will arise and have compassion on Zion for it is time to be gracious to her for the appointed time has come.

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Surely your servants find pleasure in your stones and will pay you more in dust. So the nations will fear the name of the Lord and all the kings of the earth your glory.

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He's describing Jerusalem itself, Zion, which was in ruins at the time. God would have mercy upon her and would raise her up.

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This by the way is a messianic activity is something that is attributed to the Messiah. And then he says in verse 15 so that in the time to come when

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Jerusalem is established and Zion is raised up again all the nations will fear the name of the Lord and all the kings of the earth your glory.

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This is talking about that kingdom that is to come where all the kings of the earth will bow down to that one sovereign name.

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Verse 16 for the Lord has built up Zion and has appeared in his glory and has regarded the prayer of the destitute and has not despised their prayer.

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This is providence because God lives from generation to generation from age to age and never comes to an end God hears our prayers.

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Remember the beginning of the psalm hear me answer me I feel like a chirping bird on a rooftop I'm all alone I'm without anybody

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Lord answer me and hear my prayer He feels as if God has not heard his prayer but then after he comes to understand that God is a

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God who never ends in his name as a status through all generations he has this confidence that the

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Lord has heard the prayer of the destitute. Verse 18 This will be written for generations to come that people will get to be creative and praise the

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Lord because God lives forever his praise will endure forever and people who are yet to come beyond our generation will live and endure his praise in the name of the

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Lord for he has looked down from his holy icon from heaven and was raised from the earth to hear the groaning of the prisoner to set free those who were doomed to death that men may tell of the name of the

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Lord in Zion and his praise in Jerusalem when the peoples are gathered together in the kingdoms to serve the Lord this is what all the history is looking forward to when the kingdoms of the earth serve the

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Lord as his kingdom verse 23 he has weakened my strength in the way he has shortened my days

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I say oh my God do not take me away in the midst of my days your years are throughout all generations notice he is comparing how long he lives and exists to how long

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God lives and exists right God takes me away in the midst of my days the years of God do not conclude

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I perish I wither away God endures forever this is the contrast that the entire song is built around that contrast verse 24 verse 25 behold you founded the earth and the heavens on the work of your hands even they will perish but you endure and all that will wear out like your garment like clothing you will change them and they will be changed that you are the same and your years will not come to an end this is the last few verses of the three verses quoted in Hebrews chapter 1 verse 28 your children your servants will continue and their descendants will be established before you because God endures he will establish his purposes and his people will live before him and dwell before him forever that is the promise so here is the psalm you and I like all of creation are destined to perish we come onto the scene and we perish from the scene forgotten in the sand of time and unwritten through all of history we appear briefly and then like smoke and ash away like grass we wither away like a chirping bird that's there for a day and then he flies away we are gone never to be heard from never to be remembered again that's the contrast that's us and then there is our

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God whose kingdom and whose purposes and whose nature goes on and on forever and ever he is established his name endures generation to generation so here is the question that this psalm answers to what or to whom is it that we as perishing people bound up with this creation destined to perish like all the rest of creation to whom or to what is it that we look and the answer to that is to a

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God that does not change we who change constantly look to a God that does not change we who are not eternal beings who have a beginning look to one who has no beginning we who are destined to perish and to die look toward one who never dies that is the hope of the believer

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Isaiah 51 verse 6 or I should say God says in Isaiah 51 verse 6 look up your eyes to the sky then look at the earth beneath for the sky will vanish like smoke and the earth will wear out like a garment and its inhabitants will die in like manner we're part of this creation this is sin curse falling creation and we like the rest of creation are withering away wearing out like garments and then we die just like all creation does and then

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God says but my salvation will be forever and my righteousness will not wane this is the hope of the believer see

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I'm a perishing person you are a perishing person we need a righteousness that does not perish we need a holiness before God that endures forever we need a life that can never end that's what we need because we perish and because we are wasting away we need something that does not waste away and that is the righteousness and salvation of God so that's what

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Psalm 102 is all about now before we turn back to Hebrews chapter 1 I want you to notice two things first this passage in the

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Old Testament clearly speaks of God clearly speaks of the God of Israel the great I Am this is the

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Lord the eternal Lord the God the coming God of Israel that is being described in Psalm chapter 102 these verses like this are often attributed to Jesus in the

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New Testament New Testament writers thought nothing of doing this they didn't think anything of taking a passage they clearly described

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Yahweh in the Old Testament they're saying yeah that's Jesus in the New Testament and they do this repeatedly this is one of the evidences that Jesus Christ is

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God so I want you to notice that first second I want you to notice that Jesus Christ here is said to be the one that's being described in verses 24 sorry 25 through verse 27 in other words the author in Hebrews chapter 1 quotes the words of this

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Psalm as coming from the lips of the Father anthropomorphically speaking of course the mouth of the words of the

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Father to and about the Son but in Psalm 102 these words are the words of the soul of the

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Father okay in Psalm 102 it is the psalmist who is describing Yahweh in Hebrews chapter 1 the exact same words are said to be the

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Father describing the Son see the difference there now how do we resolve this this is a little bit difficult but there is something at some point in Hebrews I'm going to tap and I don't know when this is going to be it's probably going to be at a time when you're far more awake but at some point in Hebrews we're going to have to tackle this issue of how is it that the

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New Testament treats Old Testament passages because all the way through we've seen this all the way through this first chapter there are words that describe

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God that are said to be the psalmist's words that are then said to be the Father speaking those words to the

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Son and the short answer to this is that this is that the author of Hebrews is reading the

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Psalms in a Christocentric way a Christ -centric way in other words like we described last week in the psalmist's own day he is describing something that was true of him something that was true of his situation as God but then beyond the psalmist's initial words is this reality that is distant to him it is a reality that is greater than even what he is describing it is a fulfillment that is bigger and better than the fulfillment that is initially his at his own time does that make sense?

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so from the perspective of the psalmist he is looking he is describing this but he is looking to and describing something at his own time something that was greater even beyond his own time and we saw that last week what

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Hebrews did last week in Psalm 45 and we see it here in Psalm 102 as well though the psalmist is describing

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Yahweh Hebrews says this is Yahweh the Father describing

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Yahweh the Son speaking of Yahweh the Son now if those words in verses 25 26 and 27 are said to be the words of the

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Father spoken to and of the Divine Son then does that not mean that maybe the rest of the psalm is

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Christocentric as well in other words are there other elements of this psalm that would unbeknownst to the author but to our eyes we can see it would be describing the

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Son not just verses 25 27 go back to verse 1 there probably

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I promise you I won't go into this but go back to verse 1 and I want to quickly read through this again you ask yourself does this sound like what

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I get to be describing the word Jesus Christ hear my prayer oh God let my cry for you all come to you do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress quiet your ear to me for my days have been consumed in smoke and my bones have been scorched like a heart my heart has been spit like grass has been whipped and wet indeed

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I forget to eat my bread because the loudness of my groaning and my bones cling to my flesh I resemble a pelican from wilderness and become like an owl of waste places

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I lie awake and become like a lonely bird on a housetop my enemies have reproached me all day long those who deride me have used my name as a curse so maybe you quote

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New Testament passages with almost every verse in those first aid verses can you not what would this describe this describes the suffering of some men these verses could just as easily describe the anguish of the

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Lord Jesus Christ not everything is parallel because verse 10 he says because of my indignation because of your indignation and your wrath that you have lifted me up and cast me away so again as we've seen in other passages not everything that is described here is one to one corresponding to the

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Son but as the author is looking through his own experience and circumstances he is seeing something that is a greater reality and that greater reality is the

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Lord Jesus Christ if this entire psalm is to be read in substance in that dual fashion which the author seems to suggest that it should be if that is the case then the first part of this psalm describes the prayer of anguish of the afflicted one who is afflicted not for his own sin but for the sin of others who on the cross could be describing his bones clinging to his flesh and eating ashes and weeping and all the mixture of anguish that that would describe in his own persecution and suffering and if that anguish that is being described here is the anguish of the

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Son on the cross and the later part of this is the words of the Father to the Son then the words of the

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Father to the Son verses 25 to 27 is the answer to the Son's anguish so put these two together it is the

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Son who says I wither away and perish like grass because Jesus in his humanity did just that he died and he went away and all men they suffered death for us so he dies in his humanity but the

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Father's answer to that is to say to the Son your throne oh God is forever and ever your name endures throughout all generations your people will be established before you so while the

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Son feels as if he is perishing and experiences that death the Son affirms you are not withering away like grass that may be how our

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Jesus felt in his humanity as he suffered our wrath but his name endures throughout all generations he is not coming because he is the eternal king who sits over eternity death

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Psalm 102 is all about the Lord Jesus Christ so Hebrews itself now go back to Hebrews chapter 1

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Hebrews chapter 1 and we will look now through Hebrews chapter 1 at three things that are referred to the

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Lord Jesus Christ in verses 10 -12 three things first that he is uncreated second that he is unending and third that he is unchanging he is uncreated unending and unchanging verse 10 now remember the author of Hebrews here is taking this passage and he is saying this is what

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Yahweh the Father sends to the one who is the Son who is also called Yahweh the

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Father sends to the Son you Lord the Father calls the Son Lord in the beginning lay the foundations of the earth and the heavens are the works of your hands this is poetic language to describe creation obviously the divine

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Son in his eternal nature in his essence as God does not have no hands so he describes creation as being as if the

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Son were to take and lay a foundation something solid and seemingly everlasting that is established and solid upon which you build a house and a framework and so it is that he laid the foundation of the earth and the stars are the works of his hands now all the way through the

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Old Testament it is Yahweh who is said to be the creator all the way through the Old Testament and we get to the

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New Testament we find out that that creator Yahweh is none other than Jesus Christ and so he is affirming here what he said in verse 2 of chapter 1 that he has spoken to us through the

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Son who is the heir of all things and through him he made the world and we saw when we looked at verse 2 and I don't mean belatedly just talking about Jesus Christ the creator but we saw in verse 2 that when he affirms that Jesus is the one from whom he was not and father made all the worlds he is not describing just our planet just our earth our belongings our self our sources or our universe he is describing everything in it it is the most comprehensive word he used to describe all of reality all of the events in history things unseen and seen as Paul says in Joshua chapter 1 where the principalities and powers and minions and rulers whatever it is he has created all things there is nothing that has come into existence that he himself has not made and if that is true then logically

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Jesus Christ cannot be a created thing if he is the creator and he has created all things then he cannot himself be a created thing because that is a contradiction he must himself be the uncreated creator if you have no beginning then you have no end that is what scripture affirms so the second thing not only is he uncreated but he is unending look at verse 11 and they will perish that is the earth and the heavens those things which he has made they will perish but you remain

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Jesus Christ is unending this is the father describing the son everything else will perish yes humanity will perish the grass will perish the little bird on the rooftop the wall will perish everything around you is temporary around you there is nothing that you have ever seen that will last forever except for the souls the people here not even the bodies of the people here will last forever in their eternal life everything that is created is created except for them not going to last forever but our

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God the Lord Jesus Christ does live forever he does last forever he is without end he has no beginning and he will have no end he is the eternal

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God and since he will last forever everything else will come to a close everything else will be wrapped up long before he ever perishes he will never perish and when everything a million years from now when all of this is but a distant memory he will be have your mind on that that is so difficult everything around us will perish but he endures and he lasts forever and they will all be verse 11 says they will perish and remain and they will all become old like a garment that is all of creation is wearing out everything that is created is created to be temporary is created to not last forever every physical thing is created to be temporary it's not going to last forever and it will all wear out like a garment so like a piece of I know shirt that you've worn just way too many times this creation this world is just getting old it's not nearly as old as evolutionists and the old earth or as fine as it is but it is getting old and it's wearing down everything is wearing down just this last week we saw that the white rhino was becoming extinct right species are becoming extinct now that should be a problem for the evolutionists because according to them new species should pop in and maybe out of nothing all the time so the extinction of the species is not really a big deal there's more species that are just going to pop into being and we shouldn't really worry about that but we know from creationist perspective that everything is wearing down and everything is wearing out things are not getting better the mountains are eroding the rocks are falling apart eventually it's all going to perish

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I remember when I was in 8th grade I remember learning that our sun was eventually going to burn out because it's consuming millions of metric tons of whatever it burns each and every day it's consuming this large mountain you can't have a fire that big it's not burning stuff up right now

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I always do this as a kid when stuff burns you throw wood on it and the wood is eventually consumed but it never occurred to me that the sun is doing the exact same thing so I learned in science class that eventually 5 million years from now our sun is going to burn out just worry me for weeks

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I had a hard time dealing with that because I thought none that I expected to ever live to that point but all

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I could think of was the people 5 million years from now who would be out working in their garden one day and suddenly the sun would go out like a candle in the wind not to put the song in your head but the sun the sun would go out just like a candle in the wind and we'd stop down and we'd sit in our garden and think ok what happened to the sun and then it would start getting colder and colder and colder pretty soon they'd be so cold they'd just freeze to death or that the sun would diminish in its capacity to keep us warm over longer times it would get colder and colder and colder every year until eventually we all froze to death and had nothing to eat 5 million years from now but I was horrified to think that and then my science teacher said eventually all the motion in all the universe has to stop eventually the earth is going to slow down its rotation on its axis eventually the earth is going to stop revolving around the sun there will eventually be a complete heat death and a complete motion cessation of all motion and energy as all motion and energy is used up and as inertia takes over and all creation dies this motion and heat death does 10, 15, 20 billion years in the future what was going to happen

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I thought I just can't imagine the moon floating off into space away from the earth somewhere and then just eventually stopping and everything just sitting there above me now

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I know how it's all going to end like a scroll the word Jesus Christ is just going to roll this off not going to die heat death not going to die motion not going to last 35, 30 years it doesn't even last a full 20 ,000 years not going to last that long eventually the word

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Jesus Christ is going to roll up all creation just like you roll up to pull up a ship possibly that's what scripture says

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Isaiah 34 verse 14 describes the heavens being rolled up like a scroll Revelation 6, 14 the sky was split apart like a scroll and rolled up and every mountain and island the moon and other places and it just says they're going to be changed first of all

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I can imagine being rolled up this is this is this is magnificent this is said in the word of Jesus Christ it takes no more effort for him to roll up all creation like a scroll than it does to roll up like a scroll or for you to fold a garment how much energy does it take to fold a garment nearly nothing and so it is in the word of Jesus Christ this is a statement of his sovereignty and his powers over all creation when the time is up he's just going to fold it all together and recreate something else all of this creation will be recreated and will become new 2

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Peter 3, 10 it says the day of the Lord will come like a thief in which the heavens will pass away from the war and the elements that destroy the intense heat of the earth and its works will be burned up rolled up like a scroll burned up and consumed completely remade everything around us is going to be destroyed by fire everything that's what the future holds not a heat death but being it's the opposite being consumed by a consuming fire he is unending and fourth or third he is unchanging he is unchanging where rivers fall like a mountain eventually you will roll them up like a garment they will also be changed but you are the same and your years will not come to an end the book of Hebrews begins with this affirmation that Jesus Christ is unchanging and the book of Hebrews ends with the same statement in chapter 13 we're saying that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever now in his essential nature as the divine son he is unchanging in his humanity the

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Lord Jesus Christ learn obedience in his humanity the Lord Jesus Christ learn affliction learn suffering experience those things in his humanity he can do he grew he learned to walk he learned to eat he learned to blow his nose he learned to comb his hair he learned to make furniture with Joseph all of that he learned, developed and grew in favor and stature with God and with men that is true of Jesus Christ in his humanity but the divine nature which was eternally existent before he was ever incarnated before anything was spoken into existence that divine nature which is in the

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Lord Jesus Christ as fully God that divine nature is always unchanging and the fact that he is unchanging that is something that can only be said of God only

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God can be said to be unchanging everything that is created changes everything there is nothing that has ever been created for that has a beginning that has not changed everything that is created changes that is the nature of what creation of what happens in creation and when you meet someone you haven't seen in a long time you shake their hand you give them a big hug hold them in arms length and you say to them you haven't changed a bit that's an alright lot a normal lot what you mean by that is you're not giving me this great fat hold and ugly as they thought you would be at this point you're just a little distance or you might have said a little more kindly and say the years have been far kinder to you than you deserve and you say to them you have not changed when in reality they have been changing from the moment that they came into being you know you compared to how much

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God has changed which is nothing you have changed radically since you woke up this morning everything in the world has been in constant flux since you woke up this morning you went to bed whole last night you woke up hungry this morning and then you weren't hungry because you ate breakfast and now you're hungry all over again that's constantly changing you had no energy and then you had energy you were alert and then you were sleepy and then you were alert and now you're sleepy again and you're hungry again and your blood levels have changed the oxygen content in your blood has changed since you woke up this morning millions upon millions of your cells have died a lot of them brain cells and millions upon millions of your cells have come into being and multiplied every cell in your body has a different state of your blood when you woke up you can never say that something has not changed everything about us physically, physiologically mentally, spiritually emotionally and socially changes moment by moment in fact there's no second of your life in which you are exactly identical to the previous second of your life we are like all creation we are constantly in flux and change everything about us changes constantly all the time even when you die this is what's going to happen to your body it's going to change all along rather rapidly rather quickly everything about us is changing

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God never changes never changes James 1 .17

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every good thing is given every perfect gift from above coming down from the Father once and for all there is no variation of shape and shape there's nothing about God that changes one bit that's changed there's no variation there's not a shadow of difference in who he is today compared to who he was a million years ago no difference

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Malachi 3 .6 says for I, the Lord, do not change therefore he will subject you there's something good news about the fact that God does not change think about this if God did change he only changed in one or two directions did

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I become inferior to what he was before or superior to what he was before now if he became superior to what he was before then that would mean that God was inferior to what he is now he has changed right that would mean that whatever

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God was before he was not perfect because that which is perfect cannot change and become more perfect so if God is infinitely perfect in all of his attributes in all of his character in his essence and nature he is utterly perfect in that way that he cannot change because if he changes that means he can't become more perfect so if God changes to become better than what he was before then he was inferior or lesser therefore not perfect than before and if God changes and becomes lesser inferior to what he was before then that means that he might change again and become even lesser or even more inferior even more inferior who knows that 10 ,000 years from now

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God is not radically inferior to who he was yesterday if he could change but because he does not change he can never become more perfect that means that he is perfect and that's good news for you

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Christians because it means that even if you die today and you go into the grave 10 ,000 years from now

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God's affections for you his love for you his purposes his plans his promises to you you're just as certain as they are today because God doesn't change

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God doesn't love Noah and Abraham and David anymore today than he did when they were alive he doesn't he can't because his love is perfect and he can't love you anymore tomorrow than he does today and he can't love you anymore 10 ,000 years from now than he does today his purposes and plans never change because God has not changed and he does not change we are not consumed that's good news for us as Christians but it is horrible news for the unbeliever and here's why it's horrible for the unbeliever because if you die today 10 ,000 years from now

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God's wrath his justice his righteousness his holiness will be unchanged from the way it was the other day people will feel the same way about you 10 ,000 years from now as he does this very moment when you are repentant and unrepentant and you are sick will not change and I'm going to find 10 ,000 years from now that you can slip away from his notice or hope that somehow his righteousness and his holiness and different demands on you than they do today he does not change that's good news for us as Christians all of creation can change everything that is created is changing and one day they will all be ruled up by our

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God our

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God our God our God our God our

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God our God our God our God our

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God our

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God our God our God our God our