THE first lesson for this evening’s service tells us of the wickedness of Jehoiakim, king of Judah. How, when Jeremiah’s prophecies against the sins of Jehoiakim and his people were read before him, he cut the roll with a penknife, and threw it into the fire. Now, we must not look on this story as one which, because it happened among the Jews many hundred years ago, has nothing to do with us; for, as I continually remind you, the history of the Jews, and the whole Old Testament, is the history of God’s dealings with man—the account of God’s plan of governing this world. Now, God cannot change; but is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; and therefore His plan of government cannot change: but if men do as those did of whom we read in the Old Testament, God will surely deal with them as He dealt with the men of the Old Testament. This St. Paul tells us most plainly in the tenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, where he says that the whole history of the Jews was written for our example—that is for the example of those Christian Corinthians, who were not Jews at all, but Gentiles as we are; and therefore for our example also. He tells them, that it was Christ Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, who fed and guided the old Jews in the wilderness, and that the Lord will deal with us exactly as He dealt with the old Jews. Therefore it is a great and fearful mistake, to suppose that because the Jews were a peculiar people and God’s chosen nation, that therefore the Lord’s way of governing them is in any wise different from His way of governing us English at this very day; for that fancy is contrary to the express words of Holy Scripture, in a hundred different places; it is contrary to the whole spirit of our Prayer Book, which is written all through on the belief that the Lord deals with us just as He did with the Jewish nation, and which will not even make sense if it be understood in any other way; and besides, it is most dangerous to the souls and consciences of men. It is most dangerous for us to fancy that God can change; for if God can change, right and wrong can change; for right is the will of God, and wrong is what is against His will; and if we once let into our hearts the notion that God can change His laws of right, our consciences will become daily dimmer and more confused about right and wrong, till we fall, as too many do, under the prophet’s curse, “Woe to them who call good evil, and evil good; who put sweet for bitter, and bitter for sweet,” and fancy, like Ezekiel’s Jews, that God’s ways are unequal; that is, unlike each other, changeable, arbitrary, and capricious, doing one thing at one time, and another at another. No. It is sinful man who is changeable; it is sinful man who is arbitrary. But The Lord is not a man, that He should lie or repent; for He is the only-begotten Son, and therefore the express likeness, of The Everlasting Father, in whom is no variableness, nor shadow of turning.