The Word of Our God Stands Forever

Introduction

The songs that we have sung this morning were a sermon in and of themselves. Well arranged, Scott. And certainly coincide with the message that I want to present. I want to begin this morning with a physicist named Larry Shaw. Everyone knows him, right? Larry Shaw invented Pi Day. Back in 1988. Ed is not here today. Not to be confused with that kind of pie, which is Ed’s favorite. But some do celebrate pie day by the eating of such pies. Ed falls right into that. Well, what exactly is? I gotta tell you, I hated geometry. So I’m not very good at this part of the lesson. Pi is when you take a circle, the circumfit the circumference of a circle, and divide it by its diameter. I don’t know why you would ever want to do that.

But if you do that, the resulting number is always the same, regardless of the size of the circle, pi. That’s the number that you come up with, and I guess it fascinates everybody because it is infinite in length. I had one website, one person that I looked at this week who suggested that we should remember the first or try to memorize the first 50 digits of pie. Now, only math nerds who really get into pie day, computer geeks maybe, would go so far as to remember the first 50 digits of pie, and as he suggested to notice the repeating pairs, 79, 32, and 38. Look, I didn’t even look at the first 50 digits, but I’m going to be impressed with the pairs that are repeated.

79, 32, 38, that’s all I know about pie. And I don’t have time to remember the first 50 digits. It’s football season. What’s more important? But if you missed pie day this year, you missed epic pie day. Now I don’t know that it was called that, but it should have been because epic, the two letters in the middle are pie. This was epic pie day because it was March 14th, 2015. And if you missed it, you’re going to have to wait around 100 years to get to do it again. So now you know what pie day is. But what you may not know is the pie bill of 189. This was proposed to the Indiana State Legislature by a medical doctor named Edwin J. Goodwin, who proposed that the value of pi be changed to 3.2.

Round it up. I don’t know why I didn’t round down. 3.14 would seem to me that you round down. I guess you like 3.2 better than 3.1. And so I hate to inform you that, yes, for my home state of Indiana. Mr. Goodwin suggested that the value of pi be changed. Redeeming the state of Indiana was a Purdue professor named C.A. Waldo who convinced the Indiana State sentence Senate that this bill should not be passed. Thank you, Mr. Waldo, for redeeming the state of Indiana. But if the government had so decreed, it would not have changed anything. Because pi does not originate with man. It’s not a value that we get to decide and determine. It is the result of the way God played things. A circle, the circumference of a circle divided by its diameter is always going to be the value that is infinite known as pi.

And changing it to some other number isn’t going to change what a circle is. You would have to change the nature of what a circle is. You’d have to put a little indentation in it or something to get it to 3.2. And then every different circle size, well, you wouldn’t come up at 3.2. So this does not originate with man. We can’t any more change pian we can change the velocity of light or the atomic weight of gold, whatever that is. These values are fact. We simply discover them because they exist and try to use them for whatever purposes. I’m not sure if pi has any purpose at all. But use them for whatever purpose that we can. It’s not that we can manipulate or change any of those values or things.

1. God's Standards Cannot Be Changed

Like the talented music composer simply takes the notes and uses them to produce a different kind of song. The same God who establishes pi, who establishes the law of gravity, defines the standards that govern human relationships and the behavior that leads to eternal life. And we can’t change those standards. Though many have tried through the centuries, and try even still.

And that’s the point of this lesson. If you don’t get anything out of this, get this. God’s standards of right behavior and the ultimate judgment in regard to those standards cannot be avoided. It cannot be circumvented. It cannot be changed. At least Felix had an appreciation of that. You know, we give Felix a hard way to go. Because he told Paul, go thy way. When I have a convenient season, I’ll call for you. But when Paul reasoned with him about righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come, at least he trembled. He respected the standard. And he knew what it meant in relation to his life, even though he didn’t act, at least on that occasion, to his salvation. Every word of God is tested. As we noted last Sunday night.

2. The Attempts at Redefining Marriage

And everyone who opposes that word will be found to be a liar. So I want to talk about this briefly this morning. As we talk about the fact that we can try to change pie if we like, and we can make our edicts, and if we do that, people are going to talk about what is really pie versus what is legislated pie, because what is really pi is pi. And not what some man says that it is. I want to talk about this. You’ve probably already seen the application. The attempts that are being made presently at redefining marriage. Because we’re alarmed by, we’re alarmed by the Supreme Court decision to approve in every state of homosexual marriage. And rightfully so. And of course, in the news this week, right on cue, Kim Davis, a county clerk in Kentucky, has been thrown in prison for contempt of court because she refused in her county to issue licenses for same sex marriage.

Tough position she’s in. Sherry and I were talking about this, what she should or should not do. I mean, she’s an employee of the state, and the state says these licenses should be granted, and yet it’s a violation of her conscience. We must obey God rather than men. And in court papers by her lawyer that were filed on her behalf, her conscience forbids her from approving a same-sex marriage license because the prescribed form mandates that she authorize the proposed union and issue a license bearing her own name and impremature. In her belief, the lawyers wrote, same-sex marriage is not, in fact, marriage. And thus she refused. But that’s her job. I guess her only recourse is to quit her job. If she cannot comply with government standards, or else she’s going to be punished.

57 to 35 were opposed to same-sex marriage. In 2015, just 14 years later, those numbers have changed to 55% supporting and 39% opposed. Now, why do you think that is? Oh, I can think of several things. Declining morals in the last decade and a half. The further breakdown of the family. And the fact that our media is pushing it so regularly and constantly and persistently trying to make it normal behavior. And the media influences public thinking. Not to mention our government as well. So, I hate to say the new definition of marriage is here to stay.

I wish it was different. I wish that was not the case. Our children are going to see same-sex couples holding hands and displaying public affection. But what I want you to know also is that no amount of legislation, no opinion poll, will ever change God’s standard any more than we can change pi to 3.2. The same holds true for any unlawful union between two people. This is really not approve. If you’ll look at Matthew chapter 5 and verse 32 in this regard, we’ll have more to say about this on a Wednesday night very soon, probably in a couple of weeks, where Paul mentions, I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife except for the cause of immorality makes her commit adultery, and then this phrase, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

A lot of what God labels adultery in our culture, a relationship that he does not approve, is considered acceptable marriage and embraced by many churches. Most churches, in fact. There is no holding the line on marriage of which is approved and unapproved by God. It’s already happened. Homosexuality is just another stepping stone, and I am concerned about how marriage will be defined by the next generation. All sorts of justifications can be asserted. But according to Matthew chapter 5 and verse 32, the one who is put away from a lawful union, put away because of her immorality, his immorality, or put away for unjust cause to marry that person, one who is put away from an approved union. To marry one who is put away causes one to commit adultery.

And I’ll tell you, churches can put their stamp of approval on things, and I’m really hesitant to do that. You know, when people come to us and they say, Well, this is my marriage situation, this happened and that happened and this happened, and in some cases where it becomes clear to us we’re going to have to say, I can’t approve of this. We can’t offer fellowship to you. We believe this is an adulterous marriage. But sometimes we’re not even given the real facts of the case. What do you do when you’re not given the real facts? Or you don’t have any access to the real facts. You may have to embrace people on the basis of what they have told you. Because you can’t arrive at the facts.

There may be people in our congregations that are adulterers. Now, that doesn’t mean we look the other way and say, well, just ask no questions. Oh no. We must do our best, due diligence, to keep the local church pure. But the fact is, somebody may come to you and not tell you the true facts of the case. And they may find what they’re looking for, local church fellowship. But that alone doesn’t guarantee their welfare. The local church doesn’t decide their eternal destiny. They will stand before the judgment bar of God on high, and if their marriage is unapproved, God will sentence them to eternal torment.

3. Man Is Transitory, but the Word Stands Forever

Adulterers must repent. Homosexuals must repent in order to be pleasing to God. So let not these attempts at redefining marriage trouble you too greatly. Sin dominates our world. But here’s what you need to know. As we’re going to be looking at Isaiah 40 in just a moment. Regardless of all of man’s enlightenment and pontificating, in all of his wisdom about what is good for man. Man is very short-lived. Man is transitory. But God in his word abide forever. And that’s what Isaiah is teaching us back in Isaiah chapter 40. This is a wonderful part of his message. It’s dire times. The first part of this book has involved of judgments, not just on the nation of Israel, but surrounding nations who have not honored God or recognized him.

And Israel is going to be punished as well. She has received double for all of her sins, Isaiah says. In chapter 40 and verse 2, but he’s instructed to speak kindly to Jerusalem. There is a better time coming, a time associated with the Messiah. And it begins with a hopeful statement of verse 3, a prediction of John the Baptist, who would be a forerunner, who would prepare the way for Christ. This is quoted in the New Testament. A voice is calling, clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness, make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. And we’re given this assurance in verse 7. Or actually verse 6. The voice says, Call out. Then he answered, What shall I call out? And this is the answer.

All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades. When the breath of the Lord blows upon it, surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. I saw an interview about a movie that’s coming up with oh, who is it? Nick Nolte and Paul Newman. Those guys are old. They used to be, I remember movies when those guys were in their prime. People talked about them. Nick Nolte, I don’t know how he’s even capable of doing a movie anymore. And then I woke up yesterday morning to watch game day, and Fowler is no longer the host of the show. What? So what is game day without power?

But he’s been doing it for 25 years. All of that, all of those kinds of things tell us about just how quickly things go. And how transitory we all are. Have you ever gone back to a place that you haven’t been in 10 years, a congregation, perhaps? And noticed how much everybody has aged? I mean, I haven’t changed a bit. But you go back, and they have gotten older. People have died.

We’re very temporary. All of us are.

4. My Word Will Accomplish the Purpose

In Isaiah 55 and verse 11, as it goes on further, we are given this assurance about the word of God. The word of God stands forever. The grass withers, the flower fades, but in Isaiah 55 and verse 11, he also goes on to say, the Lord’s ways are not your ways, and his thoughts are not your thoughts. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are his ways to your ways and his thoughts to your thoughts. And then he says in verse 11, my word will accomplish the purpose for which it was sent. God’s word is effective. God’s word does exactly what God wants it to do. It does not fail. Men fail. Men come and go. There’s a lot of things in our world that fail.

This whole earth is going to be destroyed, but the word of the Lord endures forever. It will succeed in the purpose for which it was sent. And in Isaiah 59 and verse 21, that’s why he is instructed. And as for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord. My spirit which is upon you and my words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your offspring, nor from the mouth of your offspring’s offspring, says the Lord, from now and forever. And that’s why we teach our young people in the Bible classes. That’s why we pass this on from generation to generation. Because for now and forever, the word of God will abide. And so here it is.

5. I Trust in God's Word

This is why I preach the gospel. This is why I’m here every Lord’s day. This is why I’ve been your preacher for over six years. Because I trust in God’s word. Keep the counsel of God’s word close to your heart. Always. Trusting in both its validity and its value. A unique and unparalleled marvel in the history of man. There’s nothing like the Bible. The Bible is the book of all books. And I can state unequivocally, without any concern whatsoever, that I might be wrong, that the Bible is the product of a divine being, our creator. And just like the graphic, man fades as the flower and the grass. But the word of our God stands forever. You know how awesome that is.

I know that’s right. I know that it’s true. That when I was baptized into Christ, I put to death the old man of sin. My sins, all of my sins of the past were washed away. My conscience, that which accused me of guilt, that says, I’m a sinner, that I’ve done wrong things before God. That was cleansed. Everything was made new. And I rose out of the waters of baptism in likeness of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. And just as he rose unto a new state, becoming King of kings and Lord of Lords, and a name has a name that is above every name. I rose to walk in newness of life by the power of God. And I know that. I don’t ever question that.

So many passages of the New Testament say that it’s oh, I can trust it because the word of God stands forever. I can trust in what God has said about salvation. And I can trust in what God has said about divine assistance for the righteous. And that’s where Isaiah’s message really began. In Isaiah 40 and verse 1, when he says, Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. He is the God of all comfort. He would say later in Isaiah 40, those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength, verse 31. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run and not get tired, and they will walk and not become weary. Not only am I confident that God will be with those who are saved in Christ, that he is involved intimately with your life as a Christian.

That he cares about your circumstances and your pain. He knows our struggles. And not only do I know that he assists us, and that he can aid us to persevere. The flip side of that is true as well.

6. God Will Bring Retribution for the Ungodly

God will bring retribution for the ungodly. Oh, but look at me. I got my way in regard to same-sex marriage. That’s not going to comfort you one little bit on the day of judgment.

Homosexuality, adultery, fornication, pornography, intoxication will be ungodly acts, no matter how our society may try to legitimize them. You’ve heard about Ashley Madison, right? The website for cheaters. Somebody got this great idea. We could hack, we could hack them and reveal those who have used the Ashley Madison website for adultery, for cheating. And several people have been exposed. You know what’s amazing about that story? Their business has actually gone up as a result of the media publicity. Cheaters. That’s the nature of our world. It’ll be ungodly, no matter what. Pie will be pie no matter what. Sin will be sin, no matter what. We must all stand before the judgment seat of God to receive the things done in our body, whether those things are good or bad.

Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 10. And again, there’s no changing that. You can’t circumvent that or hope that’s not true and they go away. It’s not going away, people.

Conclusion

Retribution for the ungodly. But if we will obey him. And as Christians, if we will honor our covenant with him, we are promised. And we can trust this as well. An ultimate, wonderful. Beyond our mind ability to grasp treasure that awaits the righteous. And we ought to live for that and long for that every day of our lives. The word of our God stands forever. Do you need to embrace its permissions while there’s time and opportunity? We urge you to come. Let’s stand the same.