Our God is Immutable (Part 3)

Consider the time in which that was written, right, by the writer of Hebrews. Now, we don’t know who the writer of Hebrews was, but what we do know is the writer of Hebrews lived in a time that was much closer to the time period of Christ himself, right? So this would have been shortly after the Lord went back to heaven in his ascension. But in that verse though, is there not an indication, kind of a foreshadow, looking into the future, right?

That Jesus Christ, even though he had already lived and he had died and risen and ascended back to heaven, yet that verse kind of echoes through all the way to our time, because Christ still hasn’t returned, right, for us. And so it reminds us all these years, almost 2,000 years later, that the same Lord, the same Christ that we read about in scripture, the same, and now that’s speaking not just of God in general terms like that, like we’ve seen, but specifically of Christ himself, right?

He has not changed in all of these years. What we read in scripture is the same, the Christ who died for us is in every way just the same as he was as we read in scripture. And so what that kind of does is it kind of, it causes our faith to be static and stable, right? That it doesn’t change, because the center of our faith is Christ himself, the person of Christ.

And we know that he will, like the God as revealed in the Old Testament, for he is that God, that he will never change ever at all, no matter how many years have passed since that time, he is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. So what we’re gonna do is we’re going to pray, and then we are going to go to the book of Malachi, the book of Malachi chapter three.

So let’s pray together, and we will continue our study. Our Father, we thank you for the opportunity to study your word once again, and thank you for your people, thank you for the rain, and Lord, we thank you for allowing us to meet together with no hindrances. Lord, many of your people in this world are having to meet under duress, or oppression, or fear, with great carefulness and wariness, Lord, but we meet freely, and we give you thanks for that.

Lord, help us not to be spoiled on that liberty, but Lord, to use it, to use it for good, to use it to serve you, and to live for you with our whole heart. And so Lord, as we look at your immutability, Lord, I just wanna stop and give you thanks for the fact that you do not change at all ever, and that your every attribute, every glory that you have is the same as it has always been.

And Lord, we thank you for our savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, and his great compassion, and love, and righteousness, as we’ve seen in scripture. Lord, persist unto this day, for he cannot change. And so guide our study, Lord, help us to stand in awe of you, of your word, of your character here this morning. And I pray that you’d give us open hearts, hearts to hear, and Lord, we would be moved, and strengthened and edified by what the word says this morning.

We ask these things in Jesus’ name, amen. All right, well, now what, as just one more reminder, one more review, point of review, so the immutability of God is applied to Jesus Christ, and so what does that, what conclusion does that lead to? Anybody?

Jesus Christ is God, right? Because immutability is an essential attribute of God, like we’ve seen with others, and so whenever that is applied to Christ, that means Christ is God. Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh. Okay, so now we move on to Malachi chapter three, and where this is one of the key passages and key verses, rather, that deals with the immutability of God, there’s a little twist on it that kinda helps us and leads us into the greater truth of the practice, that is, what practical effect the immutability of God has upon us in our life.

All right, Malachi chapter three, look at verse number, verse number five. Malachi three, verse number five. And I will come near to you to judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers and against false swearers and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts.

For, there’s the connector, I am the Lord, I change not. Now notice this, therefore, that is, because the Lord does not change, therefore, ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. So there’s a connection here in this verse, and this is a very practical connection, and this kinda leads us into what we’re gonna say, that because of the fact that God does not change, he says to Israel, because I am immutable, I have not consumed you, I have not consumed you.

Now, it’s difficult to know exactly all the different facets of what the Lord is talking about here, but one thing we know is this, is of all the rebellion of Israel throughout the years, throughout the centuries of their history, from, this would have been 1200, or actually it goes even further back to the time they were in Egypt, we’re talking 1500 BC, all the way to the point of Malachi, so this is like a thousand years of history, of the history of Israel, a little more than a thousand, 1200 years of history, and all the rebellion of Israel, and all the times they had turned away from God, because truly, if you look at the scripture, Israel is found, if you were to weigh the periods of time of Israel’s obedience and following the Lord on one side of a balance, and you put the times of Israel’s obedience, obedience on one side and disobedience on the other side, the disobedience far outweighs the obedience.

The history of Israel is a very sad, actually a very sad history, but here’s what the Lord says, although that’s all true, the reason why, the reason why Israel still exists at this, what we read here in Malachi, which is at the very end of the Old Testament period, 400 years-ish before Christ, the reason why Israel exists is because God has not changed. God’s mercy, God’s, we’ll see more about this in just a minute, God’s oath, God’s promise, God’s faithfulness, God’s loyalty, God’s truth, all the attributes that led the Lord to keep his promise, all the attributes that led the Lord to restrain judgment when they were disobedient, because those attributes are unchanging, that’s why Israel exists.

It is not because they were obedient, and that’s kind of one of the messages of Malachi. The reason why Israel still exists, existed at this point despite their obedience is not because they were faithful to God, no, it can’t be attributed to them. What the Lord is saying is because I don’t change. What the Lord is saying is because I don’t change, because they had changed constantly.

And so the Lord says, therefore, ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. If the Lord ever changed, if his attributes changed, if his standard of holiness and justice and faithfulness ever changed, because God made an oath to Israel, a covenant with them, God bound himself. If God ever changed, then that would be null, and they would no longer be because of their sin, but they’re not. Even to this day, they exist.

The people of Israel exist. Just be careful, I know there’s a lot in these days, especially in conservative media, there’s a lot of talk about Israel and the state of Israel and what that refers to. When the scripture describes Israel, it’s describing a people group, not necessarily the modern state of Israel, although they’re obviously related. But whatever comes of the state of Israel, God’s promise to the ethnic group is sure.

Okay, so that leads us to the practical outworking, the practical effect of God’s immutability. Now, I wanna just remind everyone of this. When you look at, how many of you have ever done any study of church history?

Now, maybe reading a little bit. That’s, listen, that’s a good, if you could go on Amazon, Amazon might not be the best one, because there’s everything on Amazon, the crazies as well as the good stuff. But if you were interested in that, I would highly recommend that you get a book, even if it’s just kind of a Cliff Notes version or an Idiot’s Guide to Church History, whatever, you would get a summary book that would describe church history.

Now, not everything in that book, in a book like that is gonna describe church history like we think of the church, right? It’s gonna describe the history of Christianity, which is in the broadest sense possible. But the benefit to that is number one, the Lord wants us to know that because He has given us various histories of His people in the Bible. So the history is important for us to know.

Secondly, He gives a prophetic history of the church in Scripture. So the Lord wants us to understand to the extent that we’re able, He wants us to understand church history. Now, why is that important? Because when you study church history, what you realize is that the way that things are as far as theology, as far as practice, is that people who have named the name of Christ or our history are not the same now as they always were.

So you see, we get this in our mind, we get this idea that in the moment, this second basically in which our life exists, that it’s always been like that and always will be like that. And it’s not the case, that is not the case. And throughout church history, there have been ebbs and flows of theological debates and arguments, things that people thought they were required to do, things that they thought they weren’t required to do.

And in other words, it just goes like this, it’s theological debates throughout church history. Now, even in our time, I’ll give you an example. I actually have talked about this example a number of times recently with just people I’ve talked to. You know, 20 years ago, 20 years ago, when I was first saved in Bible college and that kind of thing, Calvinism and reform theology was not nearly as in vogue and trendy as it is now, right?

And now, like if you wanted to go to a reformed church, like first of all, they didn’t really call themselves reformed churches back then, it was basically you were Presbyterian, generally. And there were some notable exceptions, there were some, but it was not nearly as much of a thing as it is now. And so what you’ve seen in the last 20 years of history is you’ve seen theological trends.

And so what you have is that in the last 20 years, there’s been an uptick, a trend toward reform theology and Calvinism, whereas before that period, and as many of you know, how many of you remember when you were, maybe when you were saved in the, if you were saved in the 70s or the 80s or the 90s, there was a strong push toward, in churches especially like ours, there’s a strong push toward, you know, bus ministry and a big push toward getting large numbers of people.

And a lot of that was related to the United States culture at that time. Yeah, Dave. Yeah, exactly. And maybe that wasn’t, we might think maybe that was just our types, but it also extended to like the Southern Baptist Convention, which is the largest Protestant denomination in the country, right? And so what you see is, and now a lot of that’s shifting, has been shifting away from that, you know, that kind of decisionism and that kind of thing, and it’s gone in the direction of reform theology and Calvinism.

Now here’s, why am I saying this? Because what I’m saying is the fact of theological trends tells us that, okay, all of this time, has the Bible changed? No. So if the scripture has not changed, why are there trends like that? Why are they, why are they ups and downs? Now, I mean, I’m not trying to say, well, the reason why we, or the reason why we are where we are is because we’re the only people on earth that still believe the Bible.

I’m not trying to say that at all. What I’m trying to say is, do theological trends come from the Bible? I mean, they’re argued in the Bible, but the Bible itself has not changed. So the fact that you have theological trends says something has changed. And probably if I were to kind of nail it down to one thing, and I think this is true not only in the last 20 years, but the 20 years before that, I think it applies the same, which is those things that are currently trendy are the things that put you in the cool club, in the cool theological club.

Now in our time, it’s one thing, in the previous time it’s another. In the 80s, the big push in churches was to have the biggest Sunday school. I know Brother Vernon, Sister Betty, remember some of that, the influence. Because I think there was some influence of that in our church at some point in time. Big push to have big Sundays and Sunday school and bus ministries. Our church at one time had bus ministry.

But a lot of that was the influence of the Christian culture at that time. And now in a lot of ways, it’s shifted to something else. And I think that’s what we’re gonna see in the next 20 years from now. It’ll be another trend. Here’s the thing. Trends are based in men and their emphasis and their feelings and the different little subcultures and clubs and who they wanna be accepted in and that kind of thing.

That’s what affects trends. The scripture doesn’t change. Now the reason that’s important, when we think, when we’re talking about the immutability of God, is where we are supposed to anchor our theological beliefs. The scripture, the text of scripture is tied to God’s own character. Because it’s the revelation of God’s character. And all of those things are the basis for what should be our beliefs, our belief system and our emphasis and what we do and those kinds of things.

And so we should have a certain level of stability in the midst of everything changing, theological trends. There should be a certain level of stability. That doesn’t mean we don’t ever make changes in the church. We don’t ever change the lights. We don’t ever change the paint color. It’s not that. But theologically, we should have more stability. Here’s the problem. Now we’re talking about the immutability of God.

And in scripture, that is contrasted with the change, the changeable-ness of man. Remember we talked about that. Man is compared to clothing that must be folded up, right? And you gotta go to the store every once in a while and change your clothes. Why? Because men change and men are the basis of the trends in theology. Okay. So we should have some stability. Why is it that some people who are in a particular theological trend, I don’t have any particular one in mind.

I’m not thinking like that. I’m just saying you have observed, if you pay attention to these things, that some people who believe a certain thing right now, 20 years ago, repudiated that very thing. And if you were to go back in time 20 years ago and ask that same person, they would now repudiate what they believed then and then repudiate what they now believe. Why? There’s some that, I could call names, but there’s some that didn’t believe in the sign gifts, right, the healings, and now they believe in the sign gift, which I believe in the sign gifts.

It’s just, let’s see it exercised biblically if you believe in the sign gifts. But they didn’t believe in that kind of charismatic idea and now they do. Before they preached against it, now they preach for it. They preach for it. Before they preached against it, now they preach for it.

What gifts? The Bible hasn’t changed, God hasn’t changed, men have changed, and the basis for our faith system, our theology, our practice, should be the text of scripture, which is bound up in God’s own immutable character. Why does the Bible say, thy word is settled in heaven forever, forever, oh Lord, thy word is settled in heaven? Why is that? It’s that stability, that unchangeable fact of God’s word.

Now I know we get better insight into God’s word over time. I get that. But it doesn’t radically change the basics of how we understand God himself, right? Even if we get greater knowledge, and we all do as we grow. So when I was thinking about the practical aspect of the immutability of God, I thought about the changing religious landscape around us and how so many people who once so firmly and tenaciously held certain ideas and practices and doctrines, yet now repudiate them.

Something is wrong with that. That’s all I’m saying. Something is wrong with that picture if God’s word hasn’t changed. And I think what it betrays is the distinction between God changing and man changing, that God does not and man does. And is there not a clear, I know those for instance, we don’t embrace Calvinism in our church, that’s not something we believe. But those who have embraced it, did not, okay?

If you asked them, they would say, well, God hasn’t changed, right? They would acknowledge that. All right, so it’s not that God has changed. But what I’m saying is, as we represent the Lord, there’s an implication that somehow God has changed. Because we who say we believe the scripture have so radically changed, right? So it’s, well, what changed? It would be best to say, no, God hasn’t changed, but I changed my mind, right?

I changed my mind about what I thought was right. But, you know, and again, this has been going on forever. This trendy theology. And those of you that are kind of keyed in on theology and that’s something you like to talk about and study on, you no doubt have seen these changes. See, mankind often, you know, you think about changing theology, mankind often changes and often finds new ways to rationalize the same old tired ideas and repackage them as brand new.

But they’re not new. Not Calvinism, not reformed theology, not easy believism that existed before that more commonly. The theological things are not new. There’s none of them that are new. The sign gifts ideas are not new. They all have existed and they just wax and wane, wax and wane. But in the background we see that God is the same and his views, his judgments, as revealed in his word remain the same.

Now, let me say this. That does not mean we should not evaluate what we believe by the scripture. We should, we should, but, but if there are wild variances on key and serious and fundamental questions, something is seriously wrong. Let me give you another one, because this is one that is real. There’s, how many of you know Kirk Cameron?

Kirk Cameron is an example of what I’m talking about in two ways. Kirk Cameron, 20 years ago, he was the guy that started Left Behind, remember? I’ve never seen Left Behind, but it has to do with the rapture anyway. He’s the guy that started, he started Left Behind, and I think he’s a believer. I mean, I don’t have any reason to believe he’s not a believer. I mean, he says, I mean, he says he is, I believe he is, he’s witnessed for the Lord.

I’ve seen interviews with him and stuff. But in two major areas, he has changed his doctrinal belief. Right, first of all, he has gone almost entirely into Reformed theology, partly, partly. Those of you that know he’s like in a post-millennialism, okay, but that’s only part of Reformed theology. The other thing is he’s denying the literal, conscious literal torment in hell. He denies that now.

Hold on, hold on. He’s not denying it. First of all, these are not new questions. But when you see this change, did God change? Did the Bible change? No. And he says, well, I changed my mind after studying church history and the Bible. Note the order, church history and the Bible. But again, church history is, and this is one thing a lot of people get messed up on.

And if you ever have theological conversations with people that have issues of faith, the moment someone appeals to church history instead of the scripture is the moment that you’ve lost. Because you can always find somebody that believes a certain thing in church history. That’s irrelevant. The scripture is our basis. We’ve talked about this in Sunday school. The scripture is our basis. And so that must always be our appeal.

That must always be our basis and foundation because that does not change. But when you have someone like that, like Kirk Cameron, who is now coming out to say he doesn’t believe people go to a conscious place of torment, that’s a big deal. That’s not a small change. You know what? That’s trendy. Is it any surprise that the denial of conscious, eternal torment as a doctrine is trending right now?

The irony is that has nothing to do. That is exactly the opposite of Reformed theology because Reformed theology historically has never denied that. We can’t make sense of all this, but I just want you to be aware that people do change. But our foundation, our basis must be in the text of scripture. Okay, if you would look at Hebrews chapter six, do anybody have anything to add to that?

No? I thought for sure somebody had something. Oh, okay. I just wondered somewhat, I mean, what we should think about that. All right, all of you, okay, raise your hand if you’re willing to, I mean, you don’t have to. Raise your hand if you keep up with current events and political things, if that’s a thing you care about and follow, okay? If you do, you probably have noticed what Ms. Lynn is talking about is that among conservative type people, conservative political type people, there has been an upsurge in extreme cynicism and criticism toward Israel, the state of Israel.

And that is a fact. And that is a trend in theology. I’ll give you an example, Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson used to be on Fox News. He was as regular, you know, whatever that means, he was as regular as they come. And the man is kooky now, in a lot of ways, he is kooky.

What changed? Well, what changed was his theology is what changed. He’s an Episcopalian, I believe, if I’m not mistaken. And so now, you know, there’s an upsurge in Christian, among Christianity, I say that in the loosest sense, there’s an upsurge among conservative Christian types, maybe that’s the best way to put it, where due to their theological position, many of them have embraced post-millennialism and replacement theology, and for that reason, they think that Israel has no part in God’s plan.

The church has replaced Israel and inherited all of Israel’s promises. And so Israel has no more station or place with the Lord in the future. And that has then directly led to becoming critical of the state of Israel. Now, everything Israel, the state of Israel is not some like, you know, righteous people, like some, like you have the church and then you have unbelieving Israel, and you know, the Lord, it’s not like that.

Israel must come to Christ, or they will all to the last man go to the lake of fire. However, God’s promises to the people of Israel have not been fulfilled and will be fulfilled, and they will be fulfilled by means of their repentance when they see Christ, right, in his revelation. But the theological trend, the theological pendulum has swung in a direction that kind of excludes Israel from God’s plan, and the practical result of that has been becoming critical of Israel.

But see, it’s not a matter of, it’s not a matter, and you look at the Jack Van Empies of the world, you know, in the past, you know, who’s the other guy?

The writer, he’s wrote just tons of books about end time. Tim LaHaye, those kinds of books, and you know, he’s always, you know, looking at the symbology of Israel and all that they’re doing, and those people viewed Israel more like the way we view Israel, but that’s not, listen, that’s not the basis. Israel is not right because God has a plan for them still, nor are they wrong for that reason.

It’s judged by God’s word. And what has happened is that the theological trends have produced, this is the fruit of the theology. Yeah. Yeah, we are naive if we think that people derive their theology straight from the Bible, because by and large, that is not the case. It’s not even the case for us. It should be, that’s the ideal, but that’s just not all that goes into it.

Actually, that kind of relates to what we’re gonna study this morning, but, so there is some of that, you know, kind of the over-correction, and maybe that’s not the right word, but the, over, it’s a reactionary theology, almost. And so, whereas in the 90s, they were, you know, Israel can do no wrong, even when they were doing wrong, the state of Israel, now it’s Israel can do no right, and we are gonna choose to believe the narratives that are pushed by Muslim haters of God, God and Christ.

I mean, that’s kind of an over-correction. So yeah, it just completely switched. Again, here’s the thing, when you see that change, you know, that can destabilize us a little bit. Well, maybe I got it wrong. The only answer is right here.

And sometimes you’ll find yourself in the middle of where the theological trend is, and sometimes you won’t. And that’s always been the case. That’s always been the case. All right, let’s go to Hebrews 6, where we just have a little bit of time, verse number 10. Look what it says.

Hebrews 6, verse 10. For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love, which ye have showed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints and do minister. And we desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end, that ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he swore by himself. Now, what was God’s promise to Abraham? Here it is, right? It’s quoted for us, saying, surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee.

Now, here’s what I want you to pick up from this. The Lord felt the need in this promise to Abraham to make an oath. He didn’t just say it, he said it with an oath. Now, when you get married, you don’t just say, I’ll stay married to you until I die. No, no, no. You go through the process before witnesses of swearing an oath. That’s more. Now, is it, if you didn’t swear an oath, and in some places they don’t, did you know in some cultures they don’t have oaths when they get married?

They don’t have vows or anything like that. Does that mean you can just leave your wife or husband at will, no, that doesn’t. You’re still obligated. But on top of that, you have this oath, this vow, okay? God obligated himself to this oath, to Abraham. Now, follow me. He says, I will bless, I will bless thee, and multiply thee, and verse 15, and so when he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.

For men verily swear by the greater. So God swore an oath, and so usually you would, the idea is you swear by something greater, right? Who’s greater than God? Who’s God going to appeal to? He can’t, he is the greatest. And so it says, and an oath for confirmation is to them and in all strife, wherein God willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise, the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath.

In other words, God swore the oath because, simply because, not because he was gonna change what he thought, but he wanted to express to those with whom he made this covenant that it was impossible to change it. All right, you get it? So he did the oath not for himself. He did the oath for those who received the promise. All right, keep following. That by two immutable things, in the which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation who had fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us.

Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul. Well, what is this hope? What is this future faith, this thing that we’re trusting in? Both sure and steadfast and which, that is the hope, entereth into that within the veil. Who went into the veil? Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made in high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. I know this is confusing and I don’t claim to understand this whole passage either, but what I do know is that the things that God promised to Abraham, he swore that he will fulfill them.

Now that depends now upon his immutability. And part of that relates to this forerunner, who is Christ, who entered into the holiest place of all, having obtained eternal redemption for us. Now, if you’ll look at chapter seven, this is where it touches the gospel and our faith. Chapter seven, verse number 20, verse number 20 says this, and inasmuch as not without an oath, he was made priest.

Jesus was made a priest. Now Jesus was not a priest in the form of the Aaronic priesthood because he wasn’t of the tribe of Levi. He was a priest in the form of the Aaronic priesthood. He was a priest in a different way, from a different group, a different order, as the Bible says. Verse 21, for those priests, that is Aaron and his sons, were made without an oath.

They were made by birth. But this, Christ, with an oath, by him that swear unto him, the Lord swear and will not repent. Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament. Now, I know this, again, I know this is deep and confusing and there’s a lot here, but here’s the thing. The reason why Jesus is our priest, the reason why he entered into the holy place, like the priest did, right with the blood, his own blood, he was not a priest in the same way as Aaron.

He was a priest in the order of Melchizedek. That is, he was an ever living priest and he took his own blood and he entered into the holiest place before the very throne of God and offered that. And now, as a priest stands at the right hand of God, sitting at the right hand of God, making intercession for us, and that is all dependent upon what the scripture says was an oath made to him.

The Lord hath sworn and will not repent. Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. So here’s the point. The reason why you are saved and I am saved is because Christ stands at this moment as your intercessor. His blood has been applied and he has an unchangeable priesthood that is dependent upon an oath that God swore that will never change. The only way that oath can change is if God’s own nature changes.

And so in this way, our salvation is tied into God’s immutability. God has set things in motion by a vow, by an oath that he himself has bound himself to never change. The only way it can change is if God changes. And certainly, God cannot change. All right, well, that wraps up God’s immutability. And Lord willing, we’ll go into another one the next time we have Sunday School.

Let’s pray.