THE SAME UNCHANGING GOD

Job 42:1-6,12 (to “beginning”); Hebrews 1; 13:8; Isaiah 32:1,2; Revelation 21:1-3

A few months ago, I heard someone recounting an interview that he had had with a famous man. He asked that man what the key to his success was, and the answer given was ‘Compromise, compromise, and compromise’. It was an arresting description of the world in which we live. Man’s systems, commerce, and indeed every aspect of man’s life away from God, can only be maintained by compromise. But it brought joy to my heart that I know the One in whom there is no compromise, and there never will be, and I know the world that is His. I would like to speak about that.

Whilst we are left in this world, we can take account of the beauty of God’s creation. In this passage in the book of Job, in which God answers Job (and Job’s friends), God draws from the perfection of creation. I was struck by that: God speaks about the foundations of the world, He speaks about the plants and the animal kingdom, and about all that He had created. God had heard Job and his friends going through all sorts of reasonings. We do not know how long that took; scripture does not tell us – it may have been a matter of days, or months, or even a year that Job was in that sad condition. But at the end, out of a whirlwind, God speaks with power to him. I encourage you to read those last five chapters of the book in the light of God speaking in His power to a man. God illustrates His power to Job, drawing from all the animals He had made, describing even the sinews of the animals He had set on the earth – a work in which was no compromise. It left Job with a very deep impression, “I know that thou canst do everything, and that thou canst be hindered in no thought of thine”. I desire that we should lay hold of that. I trust everyone here knows the One of whom it can be said “thou canst do everything, and … canst be hindered in no thought of thine.”

There are many things we can say as to God. We know that God is love. Has God’s love been compromised in any way? No, it could not be! We know God is holy, an absolute statement as to the perfection of God. He is holy; He cannot look upon sin; He is a holy God and He is a righteous God:

‘The perfect righteousness of God

Is witnessed in the Saviour’s blood …

God could not pass the sinner by,

Justice demands that he should die;

But in the cross of Christ we see

How God can save, yet righteous be.’                                     Hymn 357

God’s righteousness will never be compromised; it cannot be. He is a gracious God, He is a merciful God, He is a faithful God. I could not list all the attributes of God. It is good for us to lay hold of these things in the knowledge that they are perfect in God. We know God’s love and mercy through our Lord Jesus Himself. God is the God of peace; He is the God of glory. I trust each one of us knows for ourselves the God of whom these things are absolutely true. That stands in contrast to the world around us, and to what we find within ourselves.

Another hymn says:

‘Thou Giver of all good!’ Hymn 1

It all comes from God. James tells us that “Every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from above, from the Father of lights”, Jas.1:17. Nothing is good but what comes from Him. That scripture is set over against man pursuing his own will and his own lusts. We are either on one path or the other: either seeking in submission to Him all that our heavenly Father would bestow upon us in the goodness of His heart, or found here in pursuit of our own will. Let us be in the enjoyment of all that God would pour out upon us.

God is omnipotent – all power belongs to Him. He is omniscient too – He sees all things. We cannot escape from the eye of God. You will gather from the scriptures that I have read that what has laid hold of me is that God is spoken of as “the Same”. You will find in the translator’s notes that it is really a name of God: ‘the Same’¹. Many writers in the Old Testament draw attention to it, and we have the New Testament passage we read in Hebrews which draws from the Old. You find David speaks of God in that way (see footnote to 2 Sam.7:28). Then when Hezekiah received a letter from the Assyrians of their intent to overthrow God’s people, he retired to the presence of God. If you look at the note to the scripture there, you will find the same word used (2 Kings 19:14,15): Hezekiah refers to God as “the Same”. He laid that intimidating letter before God, and he spoke to God about it. Are you able to take the things which trouble you to a holy and righteous God, a God who is “the Same” and always will be “the Same”, and seek His help?

We could speak of Jehoshaphat, who, when told of a great multitude come to overthrow the people of God, went into the house of Jehovah (2 Chron.20:1-13). It speaks attractively there of all the people and their wives and their little ones standing before Jehovah, and Jehoshaphat spoke to the God whom he knew, and whom he addresses as ’the Same’ (footnote to v.6) and he asks for deliverance. A few verses later you find that when Judah came to where the army was that was to overthrow them, they were all dead (v.24). That is the power of the God that I trust all of us know. His power has not changed; He remains “the Same”.

One thing I want to touch on briefly but vitally in this passage here in Job, is what Job felt as God spoke. He writes here, “Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes”. The things of which I have spoken, the activities and the privileges involved in having to do with God who is “the Same”, belong to those who recognise their own nothingness before Him. At a recent baptism, attention was drawn to Romans 6 which is addressed to those who have been baptised, and I suppose all of us here have been baptised. We read that passage, “We who have died to sin, how shall we still live in it? Are you ignorant that we, as many as have been baptised unto Christ Jesus, have been baptised unto his death? We have been buried therefore with him by baptism unto death, in order that, even as Christ has been raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of life”, Rom.6:2-4. All that we are naturally must go in the waters of baptism. Let us recognise it. Job recognised it, and he came to see God in a way that I find wonderfully attractive: “I know that thou canst do everything, and that thou canst be hindered in no thought of thine”. What a God!

The passage we read in Hebrews speaks of the way that God has been manifested in the Lord Jesus. We could have read other passages in the epistles, but we find here the same attributes that belong to God Himself, because the Lord Jesus was, and is, God. In this passage it says, “And, Thou in the beginning, Lord, hast founded the earth, and works of thy hands are the heavens”. We could have read also where it says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things received being through him, and without him not one thing received being which has received being”, John 1:1-3. We could have read in the Psalms from which the passage in Hebrews is drawn (Ps.102; 110). We could have read in Colossians (Col.1:14-20). These passages all tell us that the One who created the worlds is the One of whom this passage in Hebrews speaks, the Lord Jesus Himself.

You may say, ‘But in Genesis 1 it says that God created the heavens and the earth’. These things are shrouded in mystery from a natural point of view, but the believer’s attention is drawn to the One by whom God made the worlds. That divine Person is now known to us as our Lord Jesus. We find here some of the attributes of God which we have spoken of. We find power: the One of whom it says, “upholding all things by the word of his power, having made by himself the purification of sins”. The Lord Jesus accomplished that work to God’s eternal satisfaction. There was no compromise in what was undertaken there; all that was due to you and me was placed upon the head of the Lord Jesus. God’s wrath was not in any way mitigated; it was poured out upon His head. He bore the judgment to the eternal satisfaction of a holy and righteous God. There is no compromise in the works of God. We read in the Old Testament that the sacrifices had to be perfect, without blemish. There was never an offering like the offering of the Lord Jesus: He “offered himself spotless to God”, Heb.9:14. How perfect the workings of God; how perfect the Lord Jesus! God was delighted in the Lord Jesus here. Heaven could not contain its delight, as God took account of the walk of that Man here, in this scene in which you and I are. He was untainted by all that was around.

Christ was found here as a Man, “holy, harmless, undefiled” (Heb.7:26) before His God. How wonderful He is, the One in whom we trust, who has accomplished everything for us. We look around us and we see what that person spoke of –compromise, compromise and more compromise. We see it publicly; we see it in the affairs of men. We also see what God is able to do, and will do, when man’s system will descend into chaos in a moment. Then all will be in the hand of One who has power. We trust in Him, we trust in His love, we trust in His work. He is near, and He is interested in every single one of His own. How wonderful, dear brethren, to take comfort in a God like this, in the Person of the Lord Jesus. Then there is a reference to “a sceptre of uprightness”. How God delighted in Him! Christ loved righteousness. Is righteousness something that is attractive to you? Ask God, and He will help you to see how wonderfully attractive it is; you find righteousness in the Lord Jesus. How perfect the Lord Jesus was in submission to His Father! Then it says, “therefore God, thy God, has anointed thee with oil of gladness above thy companions”.

The passage goes on to speak again of the Lord’s work in creation, adding that “they all shall grow old as a garment, and as a covering shalt thou roll them up, and they shall be changed; but thou art the Same”. Dear brethren, this is about to take place. Soon the Lord shall take us to be with Himself, and then He will manifest Himself in His appearing here, and will rule in righteousness for a thousand years. Will there be compromise then? There will not be compromise. He will rule in the greatness of His power and all His mercy and wisdom, and this world will never have known a time like it. There will be no compromise in those dispensations yet to come, and then will take place what we read of here when the earth and the heavens will be rolled up as a garment. The passage adds, “but thou art the Same, and thy years shall not fail”. This is the One who as Man has laid down His life for us, the One to whom you are so precious that He gave His all in order to secure you for Himself. He would draw you with the cords of love (Hos.11:4) and bind you to Himself, He wants to keep you near to Him. I urge you not to stray from the feet of the Lord Jesus, not to stray from the influence and power of this blessed Man. Not only will you lose the blessings that are available in Himself, but you embark on a pathway of destruction. Let us trust in the One who is going to accomplish all things, the One of whom God has said, “Sit at my right hand until I put thine enemies as footstool of thy feet”.

Will there be compromise in that work of God, in that future time? There will be no compromise. Every aspect of wrong, of sin, will be dealt with. Not one will be missed. Not one! If you have put your faith and trust in the work of Jesus, which I am sure all here have, not one of your sins has been missed. They all have been addressed before God, and they are gone for ever. What it will be to have to do with our Lord Jesus! To those of us who know Him and love Him and trust Him, there will be no condemnation; our history has been dealt with. Yet He will review with us everything we have gone through, and as has been said, there will be no loose ends when we are ushered into eternal conditions. When “a new heaven and a new earth” come into view (Rev.21:1), everything will be in perfection according to the God we know.

I turn to Isaiah. The prophet is speaking of the Lord Jesus: “Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment”. This passage refers to a future day, but I am sure that what it presents also applies to us today. It says “And a man” – that is a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ – “a man shall be as a hiding-place from the wind”. This is written so that we can understand it, we can relate to it. When the wind is strong, you want to get out of it. It speaks of the activities of the enemy in this world today. A fierce wind, changing direction every moment, uncontrollable; but there is One of whom it is said that He “shall be as a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the storm”.

I wonder if we realise what is going on around us in the world today – the storm, the rising tide of evil, the horrific nature of what is taking place in this world. We are preserved from it in God’s mercy while we stay close to the beloved Man of whom I read. Let us hold on to Him; we need to do so because Satan’s activities are ever more intense, as the closing days of this dispensation come. Let us be found trusting in the Lord Jesus, proving Him “as a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the storm; as brooks of water in a dry place”. There is nothing in this world to refresh you, absolutely nothing. Nothing that the world could give you would refresh you or build you up. There is no food there; there is no drink there; there is no satisfaction there; but we find it at the feet of the Lord Jesus Himself. How attractively Isaiah writes under the hand of the Holy Spirit: “as brooks of water in a dry place”. You get the impression of satisfaction, of soul satisfaction: that all you look for to satisfy your desires is found in this blessed Man. He is One who, as we have taken account of already, also carries that name, “the Same”. He is “as the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land”.

A few weeks ago, I was in one of the hottest places in the world. There was a big cliff and we retreated into the shadow of it, and this passage came very forcibly to me: what it means to shelter in “the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land”. How wonderful is the protective influence and power of the Lord Jesus. He is available to all of us. Outside of that shadow where we hid, everything was scorched by the heat, life could not be sustained. “As brooks of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land”: the Lord Jesus is available to us all to sustain us, to keep us, in the present time. There is one thing we find, if we know what this passage is for ourselves, and that is that He is our resource, and our shelter, and we are not of this world, we are separate from it.

I have touched on Job’s thoughts as to himself before God. Man seems to be obsessed with promotion of self. How can we promote self when the Lord has died to remove that kind of man? We find, as close to the Lord Jesus and as drawing from Him, that we are separate from the world around us. How vital it is to maintain a pathway of separation from the world. If we are to reach through to what I have spoken of, the power and greatness, the joy and privilege of knowing the God who is “the Same”, we must keep close to Him and remain separate from all that is around. I appeal to every one, especially to the young ones: you may feel that what you have to give up for a pathway of separation is very dear to you. You may feel that it is a pathway of restriction, and of difficulties. But those are things that Satan would put in your mind. Let me assure you, dear young ones, that if you take this path of faithfulness to Him whose faithfulness to you is absolute, you will find that that pathway is not a chore but a joy. You will find that that pathway is not restrictive, but wonderfully liberating. You will find that what you gave up in order to take that pathway of separation was utterly worthless, and that what you acquire in your knowledge of the Lord Jesus is a precious deposit in the soul that is yours and yours alone to take with you, when Christ comes to take you to be with Himself.

I feel the importance of keeping ourselves in the pathway, following close after the Lord Jesus, and going where He would have us go. Ask for His companionship in what you do day by day; ask to prove His deliverance from self and the world, while you are still in it. God does not take us out of the world: that is in His wisdom. Why? Because if He took us out of it, we would not prove His strength and power and the love and influence that He exercises towards us to sustain us here in this world, but morally separate from it. Have no more to do with the world than you have to, I urge you, but have to do with the Lord Jesus and you will find satisfaction in your pathway here, and joy in your heart. You will find hope that no one can take away, as you rely on the One who is now, and ever will be, “the Same”.

I turn to Revelation. The world around us knows nothing at all about what this passage speaks of. The world may know something of the Lord Jesus; some may acknowledge that there is a God. But I do not think that man away from God has any understanding of what this passage speaks of. The scripture is careful in the way in which these things are expressed. Scripture speaks of them as a mystery (Rom.16:25). Mysteries in scripture are those things which are revealed to those who love the Lord Jesus and are under the influence of the Holy Spirit, things which God would have us understand. What this passage speaks of is a day and a scene in which there will be no compromise whatever; “I saw a new heaven and a new earth”. Then it says, “And I saw the holy city”. We have no city here; we await a coming one (Heb.13:14). This city is described as “coming down out of the heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband”. We could have read in verse 10: “And he carried me away in the Spirit, and set me on a great and high mountain, and shewed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of the heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her shining was like a most precious stone”. That conveys the perfection of divine work. In this present dispensation there is a vessel being formed which wholly answers to the heart of Christ, which fully answers to His great affection and is perfectly suited to Him. That city, referring to His assembly, is perfectly suited to accompany Him now and throughout the eternal day, when there will be “a new heaven and a new earth”. It is a vessel formed of myriads of souls who have been won through that perfect, complete and glorious work of Jesus, united together in one body to answer to His heart. How glorious to apprehend, and to have part in, and to know something of, Christ’s assembly. Every believer under the influence of God’s own Spirit is included in that vessel, which is formed perfectly, “having no spot, or wrinkle” (Eph.5:27), that there should be a full answer to the heart of Christ eternally; a vessel in which the Lord Jesus will lead in giving glory to God eternally.

I desire that we may take away some sense that there is a world without compromise, which is yours and mine. One could write:

‘Creation’s work in every land,

Adorned and beautified,

Is marred by man’s ungrateful hand,

Where Thou wast crucified.

This makes the earth, bright though it seem,

A desert waste to us;

No home can we the place esteem

Which served our Saviour thus.’                                     Hymn150

 

Our home is not here; let us not settle down here. There are young ones here seeking to set up home together, and that is good and righteous before God. May you maintain your links with our Lord together, maintain your links with the One who is always the same. Seek your solace in Him, seek your comfort and protection in Him, and He will see you all the way home. But ever remember that your true home is not here, our home is in a place where compromise cannot and never will exist, where all will be for the glory of God. Let us be stirred up in our affections to answer to God, to thank Him for all that He is, and trust Him for all that is to come.

May it be so, for His Name’s sake.

 

Address at Spaldwick

20 July 2024

Alan Croot