The Power of Eternity

Worn Out

As you turn your Bibles over to Hebrews chapter 1 this morning I am going to make an observation.

Dated

Sometimes as we are looking at old photographs we can date them by the clothes we are wearing in the photograph.

When you have reached middle age or further, the pictures date you because those clothes were so specific to the place in time when they were worn that you can’t really mistake them. You can, if you looked hard enough find a picture of me from High School wearing giant nylon baggy pants that were practically collates with a polyester button up shirt with a bright colored comic book character printed across its front. It’s not what I would call a timeless look but since my Dad had a Mike Brady perm I think it can be forgiven.

Worn over Time

Fashion can date us. Regardless whether I could fit in them or not, the reason I know longer have those clothes are because they were disposable. They wore out over time. You just can’t expect a pair of pants, especially baggy pants to last for 20 years. Truthfully I need to make some decisions now about some clothes that I own and have worn at least once a week for the last 3-5 years. You know, after about 260 wears you start to see a shirts age.

Our Passage

If your Bible are open to Hebrews 1, look with me down at verse 10 as we read through verse 12 this morning.

This picture of a worn out garment is being used by the author of Hebrews and the point isn’t lost on us in today’s culture.

Hebrews 1:10–12 KJV 1900

10 And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: 11 They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; 12 And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.

This mornings message is the 4th in our series The Power of Christ entitled The Power of Eternity

Let’s Pray

Soft Goods

In economics there is a distinction between the products that people purchaser. One group are durable goods and the other are soft goods.

Our disposable society has blurred the lines a little, but the idea of a durable good would be something like a car or a washing machine, something that is expected to last for over 3 years with regular use.

A soft good however is something expected to be consumed or to wear out more quickly. Cosmetics, fuel, food, cleaning products and even clothing fall into this category.

And while it is certainly longer than 3 years, this very planet and the universe it which it resides is a consumable product.

I have heard for a while now that we are running short on helium. Some say that within 50 years we could be facing real shortages

We use phosphorus for a number of reasons, but primarily for fertilizer. This is a pretty broad range but experts warn we could run out in between 35 to 400 years.

One study tells us that we are running out of sand, and by the year 2100 we may have consumed so much sand that 67% of Southern California’s beaches will have be gone.

The most chilling numbers, both figuratively and literally is the expectations on when fossil fuels will run out at current consumption. For coal it is 114 years, Natural gas is 52 years and oil is 5o years.

I can’t speak to how accurate these numbers are, Obviously people that have political agendas tied to, fossil fuels for instance, likely present results that favor their agendas. But it is obvious that this earth is not infinite and at some point, it will run out its non renewable resources. Whether that is 25 years from now or 2500 years for now is a debate for someone else.

Thermo Dynamics

A German Chemist by the name of Walter Nernst in the early 1900’s developed Nernst’s Theorem, essentially defining what you and I know today as the Third Law Thermo Dynamics.

Some of you, no doubt are thinking to your self that you may know it as the Third Law of Thermo Dynamics but normal people have no idea what you are talking about. And that might be a fair observation, but it pretty simple and pretty obvious. It is the law of Entropy.

Entropy simply means that everything runs out, eventually. Theologically this means that when God created the earth it was like a phone plugged into the charger and the minute that sin entered into the world that phone was yanked off. The phone still works but there it has a little countdown in the corner telling you what percentage of its battery is left before it becomes nothing more than an expensive paperweight.

Our passage this morning tells us in verse 10 that the

Hebrews 1:10 (KJV 1900)

10 … Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands:

and continues in v11

Hebrews 1:10–11 (KJV 1900)

... They shall perish ...

They shall cease to exist.

Past

What the law of entropy tells us is that if everything is running out of energy then there is a fixed point in the past where everything gained that energy.

We read about that several weeks ago in verse 2, that God

Hebrews 1:2 (KJV 1900)

2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;

Future

But here on the other side of things, v12 tells us

Hebrews 1:12 KJV 1900

12 And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.

Christ may be eternal but like a robe being changed Christ will put off this world, this very universe and put on a new one. One that isn’t worn out and ratty from the wear and tare of sin.

Eternal

Trying to get your footing in this world seems like trying to hit a moving target. While we can observe that universe is winding down in a way that is imperceptible, the world’s systems seem to change at a dizzying pace.

Governments come and go, social norms change, fashion from one year to the next is anyone’s guess. Pretty much everything is political now and what is politically correct changes from one election cycle to the next.

The author of Hebrews in this section quotes Psalm 102:25-27

Psalm 102:25–27 KJV 1900

25 Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: And the heavens are the work of thy hands. 26 They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: Yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; As a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed: 27 But thou art the same, And thy years shall have no end.

In the midst of a never changing world, God stands immutable. He will never stop being God and what he has established as righteousness will remain righteousness.

Something we will see Hebrews touch on again in Chapter 13

Hebrews 13:8 KJV 1900

8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.

Changes

I am not someone who is afraid of change. In my Bi-Vocational job I have to adapt to change on a regular basis or our business gets left behind. I truly believe that the difficulty that the church has in adapting to change is one of the reasons that I see so many of our fellow Independent Baptist churches withering to nothing and ultimately being shuttered.

I have never been one to believe that just because we have always done it a certain way is an adequate reason to keep doing something a certain way, and i am probably more willing than many to give something a try, especially if it might result in our reaching people for the Lord. My philosophy for evangelism is to try everything and keep doing those things that work!

But that flexibility sits atop unyielding rigidness. My faith rests in a God who doesn’t change, who isn’s subject to whims or double mindedness.

Malachi 3:6 opens with the declaration of God

Malachi 3:6 (KJV 1900)

6 For I am the Lord, I change not; ...

And it is a great comfort to know that despite the world changing, God never changes. Moral behavior if measured against man’s ideas of morality will constantly be in a state of flux but that just isn’t true with God.

Psalm 33:11 reads

Psalm 33:11 KJV 1900

11 The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever, The thoughts of his heart to all generations.

God’s council stands. — And even those things that were written down in scripture — thousands of years ago — penned by men but under God’s inspiration a His holy word. That council is what Psalm 33:11 calls the counsel of God’s heart not just to those people at the time of it’s writing but to all generations.

Political parties may come into and lose power, Kingdoms may come and go, and even the earth and the heavens might pass away but you and I can rest soundly on this truth. God’s word never changes: So, what is right will always be right, what is wrong will always be wrong, God’s love will never waiver.

Some of the greatest problems that Christians can get into is when we are faced with the timeless word of God and it stands in opposition of the sin that we want to embrace.

The problem occurs when people engage in scriptural gymnastics. They try and twist and contort the word of God into saying what they want it to say so that it fits into their understanding, the very understanding the God says not lean on in Prov 3:5. Entire religious systems have been built out of a desire to skirt God’s truths.

One of the most saddening things to witness is when someone who has stood on the word of God, a preacher or faithful person comes face to face with a difficult choice regarding sin in their own life, and rather than submit to the authority of God’s word, something they would expect of everyone else to do, they instead manufacturer all sorts of imaginary loopholes to excuse themselves. What comes from it is compromise and nothing sort of tragic.

Consistency

Music

A. Purnell Bailey relates that the

Author Lloyd C. Douglas used to tell how he loved to visit an old man who gave violin lessons because the teacher had a kind of homely wisdom that refreshed him. One morning Douglas walked in and said, “Well, what’s the good news today?” Putting down his violin, the teacher stepped over to a tuning fork suspended from a cord and struck it a smart blow. “There is the good news for today,” he said. “That, my friend, is the musical note A. It was A all day yesterday, will be A next week and for a thousand years.”

This morning as we had our music service we had a vocals and a viola and a guitar all playing in concert with each other because all of the musicians agreed. Each person read the note on the page and came to the same conclusion about it and so what was heard was uniform.

It would be chaos if one musician read an A as A and the other as D, but even reading A as A# or Ab, a subtle difference, would have thrown the entire arrangement off.

Faith

It is no different with our faith. When we look at Christ we should all be hitting the same note. And I’m not talking about issues of preference, those things are just that, preference.

There isn’t a Jesus of the Baptists and a Jesus of the Methodists and a Jesus of the Catholics or Mormons etc. If when anyone looks at Christ and the note they are reading isn’t the same as what we hear from the Bible then either they aren’t looking at Christ or there is something wrong with their vision.

Unfortunately I am afraid the sound that the world hears when it comes to Jesus sounds like that sound you hear when an orchestra is warming up. Many instruments playing many different notes and none are in harmony with each other.

The End

We read in v12 some familiar language about the end of this world.

Hebrews 1:12 (KJV 1900)

12 And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.

Something interesting is that this word fold that we read here is the word ἑλίσσω (helissō) its a lot like the word helix, as a matter of fact the form of Greek word as it is used here it is actually the word helixeis. And it means to roll up.

This language is judgment language. In the book of Isaiah when we read of God’s judgment upon the nations what do we read in Isa 34:4-5

Isaiah 34:4–5 KJV 1900

4 And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, And the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: And all their host shall fall down, As the leaf falleth off from the vine, And as a falling fig from the fig tree. 5 For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: Behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, And upon the people of my curse, to judgment.

and in Revelation 6:14 we read more of how this will be fulfilled after the opening of sixth seal, starting in v12

Revelation 6:12–14 KJV 1900

12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; 13 And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. 14 And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

Someday, I don’t know when and nobody else does either. But someday. All of creation will be undone. Everything will be changed. But even still Hebrews 13:8 will be true

Hebrews 13:8 KJV 1900

8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.

We read in v2 that Christ created the world, in verse 3 that he sustains the world and now we conclude in v11-12 that Jesus will remain unchanged even as the world comes to it’s inevitable end.

Jesus Christ is truly the past, present and future. As our Bible comes to a close, in the last chapter in Revelation, Rev 22:13 Jesus says of Himself

Revelation 22:13 KJV 1900

13 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

And in this world that is hard to keep up with, that changes the rules every time you turn around what the Christ has to offer is this. Stability. Someone you can rely on and someone who has loved you so much that he died for you on a cross and took upon himself your sin so that even when the time comes that this world has ran it’s course and the heavens are rolled up you too with Christ can remain with him.

For the Christian here today, I hope you will be comforted knowing that even in those times where the world seems out of control and we are being tossed like a ship at sea, Christ never changes and will never waiver in his promises to you.

But if you want to know more this morning about what it is to be a follower of Christ please don’t hesitate to meet me after the service, I would love nothing more than to share the truth of my savior with you. If you are watching from home and have questions, you can send me a private message. But please, don’t go another day without deciding once and for all that you will be a follower of our unchanging King.

Pray