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God is
Unchangeable
Numbers 23:13-26
Introduction
They
tell us that the Bible is a light unto our feet, and a light unto our
path. They tell us that as we read
our Bible we will meet God…discover who He is…and discover
something of His will for our lives. Believing Christians pick up their
Bible and dutifully read it…they read it steadily and thoughtfully,
we are earnest …we really do want to know God. But as we read it we become puzzled…for
some it leaves us bewildered…and even for some depressed.
What
is our problem? Well basically it
is this. Our bible reading takes
us into what , for us, is quite a new world,
namely the Near Eastern world as it was thousands of years ago,
primitive, barbaric, agricultural and unmechanical. We meet Abraham, and Moses, and David,
and the rest, and read how God deals with them
and it sounds almost mythical. We
hear prophets denouncing idolatry and calling down God's judgment upon the
people. We read of a man of Galilee doing miracles, dying for
sinner, and rising from the death.
We read letters from Christians teachers directed against strange
errors which, so far as we know do not now exist
today.
It
all belongs to that world not this world.
We feel that we are, so to speak, on the outside of the Bible
world, looking in. We are mere
spectators, and that is all. Our
unspoken thought is --- "Yes, God did all that then and it was very
wonderful for the people involved, but how does it touch us now? We don't live in the same world. We cannot see how the two worlds link
up. In fact our sense of being
excluded from these events can be depressing. And so the question I would like us to
consider this morning is how do we overcome this sense of remoteness? Many
things might be said in response, but this one point is critical: "The sense of remoteness is an
illusion which springs from seeking the link between our situation and
that of the various Bible characters in the wrong place. It is true that in terms of space, time
and culture, they and the historical period they belonged to are a very
long way away from us. But the
link between them and us is not found at that level. The link is God Himself. For the God with whom they had to do is
the same God with whom we have to do.
It is exactly the same God.
It is this truth on which we must dwell in order to dispel this
feeling of remoteness.
God
does not change. God is the Lord everlasting. He is eternally the same.
He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He says, "I the LORD
do not change" (Mal 3:6).
You
and I change as we grow older…we become wiser, more knowledgeable, some
of us become more mellow, softer around the
edges….we change. To say that God does not change is to
say that God is immutable – He undergoes no mutations. Most of you have heard of
"mutations." These are
random genetic changes that produce new offspring. Something is mutable
if it is subject to change in any degree. Therefore, to be immutable means to be
unchanging and unchangeable.
Here’s
a working definition of immutability. It
means that God does not change in his basic character. There are
several ways of expressing this truth:
·
His purposes do not change.
·
He never grows in knowledge or wisdom.
·
He never improves upon his own perfection.
You can also use the word
"always" to express this truth. God is always wise, always
sovereign, always good, always just, always holy, always merciful, and
always gracious. Whatever God is, he always is. There are no
"sometimes" attributes of God. All of his attributes are
"always" attributes. He always is what he is.
God,
my friends, is immutable. He is unchangeable. I’ve never forgotten some
final advice to me in 1981 before I left Pennsylvania to move to
a very upper class church
in Baltimore, where Johnny Unitas
would sometimes attend with his wife, who was a member. Back then I was
more than a little concerned. How
would I fit in? Would the
congregation accept me? At the end
of a lunch together, my friend and I walked out to the car and I shared
my misgivings with him. "Jay, you have nothing to worry about.
You’re just changing locations, that’s
all. You have the same God, the same Bible, the same Jesus, and the same
gospel. Nothing that matters has
changed at all."
In
the nineteen years since then I have found his words to be entirely true. The Bible is just as true in Baltimore as it was in Pittsburgh because it is based on the
character of God who cannot change.
This
morning let me just give you three implications of this Biblical doctrine.
1.
God’s promises his truth does not change. We break
our promises all the time. We say, "I’ll pick you up tomorrow
at 2:30 p.m. Now you be ready
because I’m coming by at exactly 2:30. I don’t mean 2:45 or
2:50. In fact, I want you to be
outside when I come by because I don’t have time to wait for
you." So tomorrow comes, you
stand outside and wait. At 2:30 p.m. I’m nowhere to be found. Twenty minutes later you’re still
standing there. Finally,
disgusted, you go back inside. The next day when you ask where I was, I
smile and say, "Well, I got hung up at work, I was running late, I
had a lot to do, something came up, I lost your address, or I
didn’t like the way you looked at me when I said be ready at 2:30
sharp." We’ve got a thousand excuses, don’t we? But God never makes excuses. He never
has to because he always keeps his promises. We may rely upon God to keep
his word!
These promises: "I will never leave you or forsake
you," "If you confess
your sins God is faithful and just to forgive your sins," "Nothing can separate you from the
love of God," "Whosoever
believes shall not perish, but have eternal life,"
are not relics of a by gone
age, but an eternally valid revelation of the mind of God towards His
people in all generations, so long as this world lasts. As our Lord Himself has told us,
"The Scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35). Nothing can
annual God's eternal truth.
No circumstances prompt Him to recall His words; no
changes in His own thinking require Him to amend His words. Isaiah writes, "All flesh is grass…the
grass withereth…but the word of our God
shall stand forever" (Isa. 40:6) David says in
Psalm 119:89,152. "All thy
commandments are truth…thou hast founded them for ever."
When we read our Bibles, therefore, we need to
remember that God still stands on all the promises, purposes, and words
of warning, that are there addressed to the saints of old.
2. God's character does not change. In the course of our life time our
personality or characteristics about us can and do change. The women who is
kind and soft spoken can have events that take place in her life that can
leave her angry and bitter later in life.
The man who is good-willed may also have events that cause him to
grow cynical or callous. But
nothing of this sort happens to the Creator. He never becomes less truthful, or
less merciful or just or good, than he used to be. The character of God is today, and
always will be, exactly what it was in the time of Abraham or David or
the apostles. The character of
God does not change.
In
Exodus 3, we read how God announced His name to Moses as "I am that
I am" (v.14). This name is simply
a declaration of His self-existence, and His eternal changelessness; a
reminder to mankind that He has life in Himself, and that what he is now,
he is eternally.
He does not gain new powers, nor lose power that He
once had. He does not mature or
develop. He does not get stronger
or weaker or wiser. He can not
change for the better, for he is already perfect. God can not and does not change.
3. God's purposes do not change. I Samuel 15:29 reminds us that "The
Strength of Israel (God) will not lie nor repent." Balaam had said the same, "God is
not a man, that he should lie; neither the son
of man that he should repent; hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath
he spoken and shall ne not make it good." (Num 23:19) When the Scripture says that God does
not repent…it means that God does not change him mind or his plan
of action. God never does
this: he never needs to, for His
plans are made on the basis of a complete knowledge and control of all
things past, present, and future.
There is no sudden emergencies or
unlooked for developments that take Him by surprise.
When
we change our plans it is for at least one of two reasons: the lack of foresight to anticipate
everything or the lack of resources to accomplish what we want and the
lack of foresight to know we would lack the resources. But since God is all knowing and all
powerful there is never any need to revise or change his plans, he has
anticipated everything because he is all knowing and all powerful. The Psalmist says, "
The counsel of the LORD standeth sure,
the thoughts of his heart to all generations." (33;11). What he does in time, he has planned
from all eternity. And all that he
planned in eternity he carries out in time.
Where
is the sense of distance then between believers in Bible times and ourselves? It is does not exist. On what grounds? On the grounds that God does not
change. Fellowship with God, trust
in His Word, living by faith,, 'standing on the promises of God', are
essentially the same realities for us today as they were for Old and New
Testament believers. This truth
ought to bring us comfort as we enter into the difficulties of each day;
amid all the changes and uncertainties of life ,
God and Our Savior Jesus remain the same ---Almighty to save.
When
Lloyd C. Douglas, author of The Robe and other novels, was a university
student, he lived an a boarding house. Downstairs on the first floor was an
elderly, retired music teacher, who was ill and unable to leave the
apartment. Douglas said that every morning they had a ritual they
would go through together. He would come down the steps, open the old
man’s door, and ask, “Well, what’s the good
news?” The old man would
pick up his tuning fork, tap it on the side of his wheelchair and say, That’s
middle C! It was middle C
yesterday; it will be middle C tomorrow; it will be middle C a thousand
years from now. The tenor upstairs
sings flat, the
piano across the hall is out of tune, but, my friend, THAT is middle
C!”
The
old man had discovered one thing upon which he could depend, one constant
reality in his life, one “still point in a turning world.”
For Christians, the one “still point in a turning world,” the
one absolute of which there is no shadow of turning, is Jesus Christ.
What
difference does this doctrine make in practical terms? This
doctrine is very bad news for rebellious sinners. God’s nature
does not change. That’s bad news for those who hope that God will
"change his mind" and let them slip into heaven. I’m sure
that many people fervently hope that the God of the Bible is not the God
they will someday meet. Consider the following:
·
If God became
less holy, sin would no longer be sin.
·
If God became
less just, sin would no longer be punished.
·
If God became
less sovereign, man could take his place.
·
If God could
forget, he might overlook our sin.
But
none of those things are true. God cannot become less holy, less just,
less sovereign, and he cannot forget anything. That means there is no escape from the hands of an all-seeing,
all-knowing, all-powerful God!
On the other hand, this is
very good news to those who want to be saved! God’s nature does not
change! God’s attitude
toward seekers does not change. That’s why John 6:37 is such a comfort. Jesus
said, "Whoever comes to me I
will never drive away." We live in a world where you get one
chance or two and then you’re out. You fail once or twice and then
you’re history. But because
God’s nature does not change, we may come to him at any time and be
saved.
The
second verse of "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" speaks to this
truth in warm and touching words:
Have we trials and
temptations? Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged;
take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so
faithful who will all our sorrow share?
Jesus knows our every weakness;
take it to the Lord in prayer!
It is precisely because God
is immutable that he is our faithful friend. We never need to worry about
being turned away because if he listened to us once, he will listen to us
again, he will listen to us a thousand times even though we come with the
same request each time.
When
we think of God's immutability, it is easy to fall into the error of
thinking that God is an immobile, inert, static, rigid, fixed,
stationary, paralyzed being. But that is not the picture the Bible
presents of God. Scripture presents a God Who is alive, dynamic,
conscious, mobile.
II God's Immutability and
Man
A What kind of God do we believe in? Says the Belgic
Confession,
We
all believe in our hearts
and confess with our mouths
that there is a single
and simple
spiritual being,
whom we call God--
unchangeable.
God is immutable. He is unchangeable. God does not change in His being,
will, attributes, purpose, motives, or promises; He is the same yesterday
and today and forever.
Yes,
we can change our concept of God. We can change our theology. We can
change our attitude toward God. We can change our standards and laws and
norms. But one thing we cannot do: we cannot change God! God is
unchangeable. He is immutable.
If
changes are to be made, they must be made in us.
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