Part 2.
“Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever.”
Young folks, is it not fine that we have an object for our hearts that can not change, that has not changed, that will not change! Everything about us is changing we are made conscious of it as we look back over our lives, and see how some of the opinions that men held so tenaciously just a few years back, have been exploded, and supplanted by others; and today, what men believe to be the truth, is not what they thought was the truth yesterday. If we go to any great library and view the volumes under any particular head, we shall find that there is a big section full of books that have become obsolete; and why that? Because the opinions of men are like the shifting sand. And not only that, but man, in his limited time and capacity, is always finding out new things and adding to his store of knowledge. So there is an ever-increasing process of change going on.
But it was not so with the Lord Jesus. When He was here as a man on earth, He was at the same time God; He was the “I AM”; He was the One that could say, “Before Abraham was, I am.” Nothing could be added to that blessed Person. As God, nothing could be added to His knowledge. He was here as the One Who was from the beginning. He was in the beginning with God, and He was God; and He was ever that though, true, He was man also.
And as man He was pleased to take that place, He was pleased to say, “My goodness extendeth not to Thee,” but that was the position He took willingly, and not by compulsion. At the same time, He was ever the same.
In Psa. 102 we get Him presented in the dignity of His Person as the Eternal One; and the title is given to Him (Verse 27), “Thou art the same.” I think that is one of the grandest titles our blessed Lord had “the Same.” How our souls need One like that, One who does not change, One on Whose Word we can stake everything, for time and eternity.
Dear young people, some of you are in school, where you hear the various changing opinions of men about many things. You are sometimes tempted to be a little distressed, or a little perplexed about what you hear; and you wonder about some of the things you have been taught. But remember this: Always retreat into this grand and solemn fact:
“Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever” the Unchangeable One. If you will have Him before your souls, it will be a mighty power in keeping you from these other things. Refer everything to the Person of Christ; take it right back to Him: How does that affect my blessed Lord? If I accept what I am hearing, what reflection does it make on the Person of my Lord? Ever keep that One before you Who is the same, and it will be a mighty stake to your soul.
Now, we live in a day when we stand in need of the admonition in the 9th verse:
“Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines.”
I wonder if there ever was the like of it in the Church’s history as there is today. I think not. There never was a time when there were so many tares and noxious weeds as thickly grown up as today. And just as in the realm of nature, there is an ever-increasing battle against various obnoxious pests that appear; so it must be in the spiritual realm, for it is imperiled by an ever-increasing number of these divers and strange doctrines, which put forth very fair claims—how speciously they can argue—and they get a following.
If you and I are to be kept from falling into them, if we are to be kept from swelling their ranks, what is going to keep us? The blessed precious Word of God.
What is a “diverse and strange doctrine?” There is only one way to find out, i.e., to test how it squares with the Word of God. If we have before us the Word of God, we shall be kept. If not, we shall be swept into some of them, like multitudes have before.
And it is not beside the mark to Speak thus to a company of young people who have been gathered out. We know there have been young people who once sat in our meetings, taught in our Sunday schools, who today are followers, and some exponents, of the divers and strange doctrines; some of which doctrines are positively evil and wicked.
If you and I are going to abide in the truth, if we are going to miss this error of going about “with divers and strange doctrines,” we must have our hearts established; and what is going to establish us? The grace and truth of God in our hearts.
“Not with meats”—i.e., you will never get established by going through the legal exercises of religion; that will never establish you. Legality—going through rites and ceremonies will never establish the soul.
What accounts for a sense in one’s soul of what the grace of God has done in giving the blessed Lord Jesus, first as our Savior; now, as our Lord, and the coming One, the Person of Christ? Grace, from start to finish, is what will establish the soul.
(Continued from Page 72)
(To Be Continued)