The Unchanged Christ — A.W. Tozer

The Triumphal Entry and the Present Christ

Now, for this summary and next, I shall speak about our Lord today and what he would be like if he were in the Toronto Resurrection. I'll again resume preaching Hebrews until we've finished. Today I'll read that passage in Luke 19, verse 28, up to Triumphal Entry, but I don't intend to finish a sermon on the Triumphal Entry particularly.

Everybody's reading this today, but won't hurt to read it one time more. It's a wonderful story and dramatic and colorful and always warms our hearts. Verse 28, when he had first spoken, he went before ascending up to Jerusalem.

He came to pass when he came to Bethphagia in Bethany at the Mount called the Mount of Olives. He sent to his disciples, saying, Go ye out of the village ever against you. When you reach up your entry, you shall find a coat tied.

Never, men, do you hide your Lucy, because the Lord hath need of you. And they that were sent went their way, and found even as he had said unto them. And as they were loosing the coat, the men as they are, said unto them, Why loose ye the coat?

And they said, The Lord hath need of it. And they brought him to Jesus, and they cast their garments upon the coat, and they set Jesus therein. And as they went, they spread their clothes in the way. He was come in a high evening at the descent of the Mount of Olives.

A whole array of multitude of the disciples began to rejoice. And praise God with a loud voice for all the men who watched what they had seen. Saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord, and peace in heaven, and glory in the earth.

And he said unto them, Master of you, my disciples, I am going to tell you that if you should have heard me preach, the stones would have moved away from you, and the birds would have moved away from you, and we would be talking about a historic event.

We would be celebrating that historic event, and it took place nearly two thousand years ago. It came to those men which is past. As soon as the sun goes down in a thing, that's as far as I'm concerned.

Jesus Christ as a Living, Unchanged Reality

If it isn't today, then it might never have been. What do you think about our Lord? What would it be like if he was here now, and would arrive in the future? You know, this is a very long time from which we shall have noticed, but spare us a little notice.

What would it be like for him to be alive? I think that's more important than any historic event because a historic event is what I add, where Jesus is alive. What kind of person would your family be if he came in anything to anger?

You can read the New Testament record about Jesus' life. He was affected by a gentle, quiet man who was proclaimed there by the avenger. Both of those who accept Jesus as the Savior, and those who do not.

I was thinking of a train to a car, and I came up to a car, a single row of vehicles, and he was the person who most possibly might be claiming his cross. But a man like one of you could not not be affected by the great man, by the very presence of this man, that is portrayed here.

Christ's Compassion and Personal Love

For the appearance, showing that he had been gentle, compassionate, and compassion all the way. Nothing has been particularly obnoxious. He's obnoxious all the time. Nothing has really done himself and been particularly obnoxious.

He had his picture taken having financed a kind of little building. But all those who were there, for sure put in compassion, friendliness, for too many people. For now Christ never did anything for show, never.

What he was, he was, with the sunshine, and he did what he did, he didn't bug on the mob, that's what he does, blah, blah, blah, blah. For what people might think of him, he was a person of love, and he was compassionate.

He would be very self-reliant, and he never saw anyone show that he cared, that he did not bring a corresponding fear to him, that he was unselfish. Would you, Christ, please love himself, and we are friends, we are equal, I could not allow it.

Never did anything that could have been a way to accuse him of loving anything, never loved anything. He was given all this and never done it. He didn't really understand the need. These Pharisees, they wouldn't understand him.

They had a little bad need. They were his people, and they would shout from the graves, ran out of the tomb, and come and remember the Lord Christ in heaven and glory in the air. This was understanding.

The Lord understood everybody. He was a charitable man. He was completely charitable. He was a man of love. He was a sociable man. He was a loving brother out of the monks. I think he was a Christian he was a friend of mine.

The Approachable Lord of Glory

Anything that comes out of the officials, they were really wonderful and gentle men. He was very loyal to himself. My friend, he was a simple man. He went back apologizing and said, I'm sorry that I can't see you.

Can you come? I'll try and get permission to see you. He was silent. I didn't really come to see anybody. I didn't even really come to look at our Lord Jesus. Anybody could come and ask him for Jesus.

They had anything they needed from him. He was sociable and sympathetic and understanding and completely approachable. Completely approachable. He was a big shot preacher when I was a younger man. I tried to get people not only to invite him to speak at a certain place and I called his office.

He was there. He couldn't speak to me. We had to talk to somebody else who was a load of a message to me. So important. So important. I suppose a man like that could start sitting down and I'd say, oh, just somebody else.

You had to go through all this borrowing and borrowing to get through. Great Lord of Glory could be approached by anybody. Anybody could get through the crowd and could push their way in and start on their program.

The Exalted Christ Remains the Same

Now, when there's a minute of death and a wish that they have been given and that prayer that makes you sing that says, I think when I read the sweet story of our Lord Jesus was written in the name of Joseph.

That's that prayer written in the name of that. You can't go back to that. I can tell you that we are unchanged then. That we are the same now as we were then and that's still there. You can't go back but it comes forward.

So we are here and we are exactly the same as we were before. That's the good news. Officially, he is exalted higher than he was then for God had made him Lord and Christ and his body was verified in communion with the Lord and God that had no other meaning other than that an individual alibi, a personality was hidden down there and unchanged by the crucifixion and resurrection.

He is the very same and I'm showing you some of the marks that characterize Jesus personally. Personality is a person who was alone and surely never heard of it. He was by himself in a single room showing the crucifixion and resurrection as not made another kind but personally and by all's known by God and had two little habits.

Jesus' Humanity and Distinctive Personality

One came up to the other man that I was telling on his knee he would make up his own little habit so he was meditating in one deep and sad and off he goes. He would make a face and he would I said, I have a dream.

I said, I have a dream. And he said, leave yourself. I said, I have a dream. He said, goodbye. I don't know if I was, if I was in the middle of seeing somebody looking into a mirror at some point, and I'd rather be in front of it because I never wanted to be in front of it.

I overlooked it. It was a separate, full-length, individual vision. Not the likes of what you're seeing in pictures. But in reality, Jesus I love. You have heard of him. Stay past fear and familiarity.

I'd like to show you different colors without any butler in your life. I said, you have this person in your life in your life, and just the same as every human being has. You couldn't be a human being if you didn't say that every Jesus Christ is in every realm the same as you any of what I've seen.

Here's one of his little speech habits. What he'd rather have seen than have a picture of him in front of your mirror at the garden's near end. But his picture went off, and went through there, and left a picture of him where he would stop and say, now I have that, and I will say this.

You don't know of the man who said that, and will say this. It wasn't true, except that's the way he did it. Now I'm not going to comment on any opinion of this. I have this person, and I will say this.

Just to hear him again, he stopped and said, well, well, I'll say this. But he chose to say it that way because that didn't mean that he was a human being. He didn't mean that was the way he did it. He only told the story of the apostle, of the stupid woman, of the murder, and those of you who've heard the parables, and the allegories that Jesus did.

Christ's Parables and Spiritual Teaching

He did it because that was the way he was. He didn't live like that. But the human being had a soul inspired by that theology, inspired by Jesus to tell spiritual stories that embodied theology in the first place.

Well, now, you know, however, he, you know, he knew all of the characteristics. And now he is a relic of him, and the triumphs have not ever been. He is the same as the old man who was born on a log cabin, and he grew up in the wood, and all along, they went on up to the lighthouse and he was very friendly, very silly.

And then they had to ask the people of Salem how to get up on that oak. They had to choose to be the silly man or the man who could be down there, and he didn't look bad. Now, this is a fundamental dissonance.

The Constancy of Christ's Character

He was sitting there in position, didn't show any sign of spirit, but it's me. The teller was telling himself, or somebody else was telling him, he's a different man. He's a different man. He's a different person now, he's a different man.

He's a different person now. He was then? He was then a gentleman, now he was then a different man. He's a different man. He's a different man. He's a different man. He's a different man. He's a different man.

The teller confirmed himself, he's a human being, and he lives in the house. It's a tone of his voice. I think we know more about people from the tone of their voice. I think that the normal human voice, the tone is more about people than I've ever understood.

There's one lesson I suppose. Number one, number two, number three, number four, number seven, number eight, number 11, number 12, number 13, number 14, number 15, number 16, number 27, number 28, and I was a friend of Jesus over the same days.

Christ's Patience with Human Weakness

And I know, and really, I'm a Christian. And if you ask a man who embarrasses me in a generally two-fingered tone, and become that of a slacker, a zombie, then I'm a sadder too. You may even say that I've been doing wrong having to tell you what it is.

But if I haven't done wrong, I'd be such a rascal, I'd become one, so I've learned that the disciples have been thinking about which one is the greater than you. Can you hear me? I see. And I've been together with that man who said, I think I'm greater than you, and you think I'm greater than you.

I was telling the kind words of David. And the lady that he talked with this, she knew what they were talking about while they walked along. At least they didn't want her to look at them when they were arguing about which one was the greatest.

But it was when I was getting in after David, that I happened to look to him, and he said, I have an opinion to blow. Capture Christians and put them in jail. He'd do them the same way. Just like a little cotton ball, Kevin could pull you right from the top of your shirt.

He would appeal to you and give you things, and everything to you. And I'd be the sheep. Somebody would tell him, he's a little old, and he had a car parked there. And he said, I think he came to court, kind of.

Tell me what I do, and who's who. And he said, I'm glad he's you. And he said, I'm a little old, and I live in a street called Stritchfield. And he said, yes, sir, I'm a little old, and I live on the upper street of St. Louis.

And he said, go down on the lower street of St. Louis. And I said, yes, sir, go down on the lower street of St. Louis. And I live on the upper street of St. Louis. And you came to howl, and the boy did cry.

So I cried. And he came down the road from Kellogg. And that same boy, who was his student instructor, when he was in Yorkville, who had said, babe, this other thing will put you right on Hadley's Tower.

Compassion for Children and the Vulnerable

So, in a quiet, jovial approach to both time and business, with no duty to be disruptive to a man, until we are in a sociated body, I'd like to just allow you to wish me a very good wish for my beautiful, well, not in real terms, beautiful dream.

You ever know or have ever noticed what a moral feeling can do? It effectively doesn't get to where we would wish for it to seem. You know, the fact that there's a good person there gives it a certain emotional everything that underpins it, which changes it to favor a religious sense of something real.

Jesus Christ was in a royal church there, and at the end of the street, Black Avenue there, and the children cry, He loves them. Has anybody complained? You better let them shout. Let the little boys and girls play.

Mercy Toward the Accused and the Fallen

They're in favor of a marriage. This, of course, is the same Jesus. And if a woman or a man was dragged into his presence, a subpost, and she should cast the first stone of death, they are in a heck of a hatch of insubordinance, and the cry of the king begins.

Christ's Exaltation and Personal Approachability

Except that God raised him from the dead and gave him a higher position. But is he personable? Is he approachable? Is he acceptable? Is he acceptable? Most importantly, does he have all the good qualities in the world?

Most importantly. He's a man of faith, contented, and a perfectly decent king. And what they call him is the head of state, and he's ready to teach you how to be a good man, a good girl, whatever you want.

But he's not a Christian. Our Lord Jesus Christ, even though he claims he thinks it's all of his own personality, has never fallen in the grace of any of the others who have come on the earth. And as you ask him, he only said he is a man who has no God.

But in him, and his children, that comes from the earth, and you can't see him. You can't. I can't. You can't. Because you need it. And the sick child is left to the conscience. The weak baby always left to the conscience.

So that's the man that was found. Three boys, three girls. That was number three. I think he would have been carried on a spoon. But he was carried on a pillow. And as you got the understanding, I think, of the Lord and the Father, that you feel if you had married with a girl to him, exactly the same.