Wednesday, February 8, 2023 PM

That story, what are we going to be talking about tonight? Anybody have any ideas? Does not start with an E, I don't think, unless there's a word that I missed. What happened from the time, I guess I kind of gave it away, the time where he was at that ticket counter from when he was 16 years old?

20 years passed, and in that 20 years, maybe, okay, he thinks anything changed with him, with his life, with his circumstances? We often want to get back to a place, even if it's just a wish for a moment, that was in the past, but we know that we can.

I even thought, do I have a picture like that? And there was one that the Lord brought to mind fairly quickly. We had it hanging in our living room for a while. It was just a little snapshot of, it was either the day or the day after Afton was born in 2013, and she was, she's our third, but she was our second who was born at home.

So, it's a picture of Holly in our bed, and she looks beautiful and all cleaned up from everything that happened earlier. Mom and dad, I'm sure, had been taking care of our other two older boys, and at some point, we bring them in to see and meet Afton.

And it's a great shot of Holly holding Afton, and Hudson, his back is to me, so I can't see his face except for his cheeks right here. And Lincoln, he's on the bed leaning over Afton, and his hand is a blur because you know it's like moving so fast because he's so excited.

That would be a place that I would love to be able to go back to, but I can't. That is the difference between us and God, because with God, there is no changing. So, tonight, we're going to talk about the immutability of God.

You might be wondering, what does immutability mean? Well, it literally means unchangeable. It comes from the Latin immutabilis. I also want to start, I have a bunch of books up here because I don't know how to make a lesson, so I end up just reading excerpts from books.

But there are so many good books about the attributes of God. This is from J .I. Packer's Knowing God. It was originally published in 1973 and has gone through several other printings. But in chapter seven, he covers the God unchanging.

And this is related to what every Christian should see as a spiritual discipline daily is Bible reading. And so, Packer starts out this chapter saying, they tell us that the Bible is the word of God. They tell us that we shall find in it the knowledge of God and of his will for our lives.

We believe them, and we rightly should believe them, for we are in earnest. We really do want to know God. But as we read, we get more puzzled. Though fascinated, we're not being fed. Our reading is not helping us.

It leaves us bewildered, and truth be told, somewhat depressed. We find ourselves wondering whether the Bible is worth going on with. I've had that feeling before. Anybody else been there? So, Packer asks the question, what is our trouble?

Well, basically, it's 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 and barbaric, agricultural and unmechanized.

We feel that we are, so to speak, on the outside of the Bible world looking in. We're merely spectators, and that's all. Our unspoken thought is, well, yes, God did all that then, and very wonderful it was for the people involved.

But how does it touch us now? We cannot see how the two worlds, the ancient Near East world and our world today, link up. And hence, again and again, we find ourselves feeling that the things we read about in the Bible can have no application for us.

And when so often these things are in themselves thrilling and glorious, our sense of being excluded from them might depress us considerably. But how can this sense of remoteness from the biblical experience of God be overcome?

Many things might be said, but the crucial point is surely this. This 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.

So where is this link found? The link is God himself. For the God with whom they had to do is the same God with whom we have to do. We could sharpen this point by saying exactly the same God, for God does not change in the least particular.

Thus it appears that the truth on which we must dwell in order to dispel this feeling that there is an unbridgeable gulf between the position of men and women in Bible times and in our own is the truth of God's immutability.

It's the fact that though thousands of years have passed, and we might think, oh, their circumstances were so much different, how could it speak to my situation in 21st century Oklahoma City when all things seem to be spiraling out of control?

It's the fact that God is the same God that he was back then and that's what we can stake our claim on. You might think why, so the last time I taught, it was over the aseity of God. Does anybody remember what that word means?

The aseity of God. Come on, Bible scholars. He exists in and of himself. We can even shorten that to say his independence, his absolute self-existence. So why then do we go from his self-existence, his independence, and then jump into immutability?

Well, I think they're pretty closely related. Stephen Charnock, the Puritan scholar, he writes about this in kind of the seminal book, The Existence and Attributes of God. It is a heavy read, but I would commend it to you.

It's just gonna take a lot of chewing to get through. But Charnock says regarding this doctrine, he says, immutability and eternity, and eternity is really kind of what we were talking about with God's aseity.

Immutability and eternity are linked together and indeed, the true eternity is true immutability. Whence eternity is defined, the possession of an immutable life. Yet immutability differs from eternity in our conception.

Immutability respects the essence or existence of a thing. Eternity respects the duration of being in that state. Or rather, immutability is the state itself. Eternity is the measure of that state. So they're very closely related, as you are talking about God.

God's self-existence, his independence, also kind of carries with it this unchangeableness over the entire, our conception of eternity. Charnock goes on and he says a little bit further down the page, "'God wants nothing, he loses nothing, "'but doth uniformly exist by himself "'without any new nature, new thoughts, "'new will, new purpose, or new place.'".

This is interesting. This unchangeableness of God was anciently represented by the figure of a cube. A piece of metal or wood framed four squares when every side is exactly of the same equality. You can cast it which way you will, it will always be in the same posture because it is equal to itself in all its dimensions.

So that kind of helps us wrap our mind around the unchangeableness and the eternality and independence of God. So let's start with the definition. This comes from Grudem's Systematic Theology. In God's immutability, it means that he is unchanging in his being, in his perfections, in his purposes, and in his promises.

So let's start with his being. Herman Bavink, and this is a shout out to Michael because I know he loves Herman Bavink. The great Dutch theologian notes that the fact that God is unchanging in his being is of the utmost importance, number one, for maintaining the creature-creator distinction and for our worship of God.

Bavink says, the doctrine of God's immutability is of the highest significance for religion. The contrast between being and becoming marks the difference between the creator and the creature. Every creature is continually becoming.

It is changeable, constantly striving, seeks rest and satisfaction, and finds this rest, rightly ordered, finds this rest in God, in him alone, for only he is pure being and no becoming. Hence, in scripture, God is often called the rock.

And we'll get to the rock in just a minute. Looking back to Packer, he expounds on this just a little bit more. He says, God is from all eternity, Psalm 93 .2. He is the eternal king, Jeremiah 10 .10.

The immortal God, Romans 1 .23. Who alone is immortal, 1 Timothy 6 .16. Before the mountains were born, or you brought forth the earth and the world from everlasting to everlasting, you are God, Psalm 90 .2.

But you remain the same and your years will never end. I am the first, says God, and I am the last, Isaiah 48 .12. Created things have a beginning and an ending, okay? But not so with their creator. This is all about what it means for God's being to be unchangeable.

He is outside of anything that he created. We saw that in his independence. But now we're seeing it in the fact that everything that he created has change associated with it. If you have your Bibles, we'll look at a few scriptures together.

Psalm chapter 102. We're gonna look at verses 25 through 27. Of old you laid the foundation of the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, speaking of the heavens and the earth, but you will endure.

Yes, they will all grow old like a garment, like a cloak you will change them and they will be changed. But you, God, are the same and your years have no end. The children of your servants will continue and their descendants will be established before you.

Malachi chapter three, verse six. Malachi chapter three, verse six. God says, for I am the Lord, I do not change. Therefore, you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob. You can see in that verse, he's talking about the sons of Jacob.

So he's kind of projecting into the future, saying, I do not change. First Samuel chapter 15. First Samuel chapter 15, verse 29. And also, the strength of Israel. You might have it in your translation, the glory of Israel, the glory of his people.

And also, the strength of Israel will not lie or relent, for he is not a man that he should relent. And what relent is that he should change his mind or that he should change in any way. James 1 .17. I like this verse especially because, I think it was this last week, it was the memory verse that my wife used with the kids at home.

She's got a little chalkboard that she writes their memory verse for the week on. And if you say it, you get like a big Fig Newton thing. Really good. James 1 .17 says, come on, phone. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the father of lights with whom there's no variation or shadow of turning.

We're talking about God here. We're going to continue this into, well, what does Jesus have to say? It's not like, oh, we need to really figure out what is right here because it's what Jesus says. I think what we're gonna see is, this just is another evidence of Jesus and God are one.

United in the Trinity, okay? It's just another person. So turn to Hebrews, Hebrews 1, starting in verse 10. And you, Lord, in the beginning, laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.

They will perish, but you remain, and they will all grow old like a garment. Didn't I just read this one? Okay, sound familiar? Like a cloak, you will fold them up and they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will not fail.

Later on in Hebrews, in chapter 13, verse eight, writer of Hebrews says, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines. So that is kind of scriptural support.

There, Packer continues, he says, the answer to the child's question of who made God is simply that God did not need to be made. It's a simple answer to a simple question. We don't always understand that, though.

We want to try and really reason it out more. For he was always there. He exists forever, and he is always the same. He does not grow older. His life does not wax or wane. He does not gain new powers, nor lose those that he once had.

He does not mature or develop. He does not get stronger or weaker or wiser as time goes by. A .W. Pink writes, he cannot change for the better, for he is already perfect. And being perfect, he cannot change for the worse.

That is God in his being, that he is unchangeable. Next, let's look over at his perfections. They use the word perfections in the definition. We might also say his character, which we're gonna look at more in this study.

As we study things, we're gonna realize they play off each other. In the introduction, I kind of said how God's attributes aren't necessarily a pie that you carve up. It's more like a tapestry of all these threads that run back and forth and through each other, and if you pull on one, it affects the other.

Nothing can alter God's character, but our character can be altered. How might our character be altered as humans? Or what might alter our character? Sorry? Sanctification, that's a great way to alter our character.

We want to be sanctified, we want to grow in holiness. Discipline is another good one. I think of people in my life, family, the loss of someone unexpectedly might alter someone's character, maybe for a time, maybe permanently.

Sorry? Trauma, that's another thing. Now, these are for on the negative side, but that just shows how different we are from God. He does not change in his character. Packer, going back to him on page 78, he says we can see God's character when we look in the book of Exodus.

So turn to Exodus chapter three. Okay, I mentioned this before. Exodus chapter three, verse 13. Moses is there, and the burning bush, and he's saying, you know, who should I say is sending me with these messages?

And God says, I am who I am. And he said, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to you. And we look at that, and that's really just saying there that he's telling us his name, Yahweh, Jehovah.

This name is not a description of God, but simply a declaration of his self-existence and his eternal changelessness. It's a reminder to mankind that he has life in himself, and that what he is now, he is eternally.

So then we fast forward a few chapters in Exodus to chapter 34. Okay, chapter 34, verse five. Exodus chapter four, verse five. Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him, Moses there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord.

And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.

What God is doing here is in Exodus chapter three, this proclamation here in five and seven is a supplement to what he said in chapter three. It supplements that by telling us that God is forever in that moment, 3 ,000 years ago, what he told Moses that he was.

And he expounds on that moral character of himself. Okay, God's love for his people is unchanging. We can see this in the Psalms. Turn to Psalm chapter 103, Psalm chapter 103, verse 17. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him and his righteousness to children's children.

We hear God's perfections often are analogous in scripture to a rock, okay? And this is not a rock like a pebble, okay? I think we know that a pebble is a rock, but it's not like the rock we're talking about here.

I did a quick Google search while I was studying. I'm like, what's the biggest rock that's out there? And I thought, well, maybe I shouldn't search for rock. Maybe I should search for boulder. And apparently there's a boulder in Joshua Tree National Forest.

I think it's out in California that is like 5 ,800 square feet in terms of its area and over seven stories high. That's the kind of rock we're talking about. It still pales in comparison to God being our rock, but it's something that like, good luck moving that thing.

Unlike water, which is ever moving, changing, unstable. Anybody try, I remember doing this in teaching Sunday school class. Try and pick up water and have it keep its shape with kids. Like, forget about it.

Contrast that to a rock. God is the rock. What are we compared to that? We are, but what does scripture call us? Dust. What else? Grass, chaff, vapor. We just, and are gone. Okay, I thought as I was looking at this, I think it was Sunday afternoon, the boys and I sat down and we watched Hoosiers together.

Hopefully, we got some fans of Hoosiers in the room, I think. So the main character, Norman Dale, he's the coach and he comes into town and is immediately greeted by this lovely lady, Miss Freener, who gives him a great welcome.

But at some point in time, he ends up out at her farm and her mom's farm and he's trying to have a conversation with her and trying to get to know her. And she stops and she says, you know, I went away to school for a few years, but when I came back, I realized what I had been missing.

Like, I really miss being in this place. People never change. This place never changes. It's solid. Now, I gotta say she's wrong on the whole people never changing thing. We might feel that way if we're in a small town.

But the unchangingness of a thing, does it give you solidity? Does it give you the feeling of solidity, of trust? That's what we have in Iraq in God. God is not like a blade of grass that withers or an animal shedding its fur.

He is an immovable boulder. Thirdly, God's unchangeable in his purposes. God's sovereign will foreordained in eternity, in eternity past, is unchanging. Hopefully you're still in the Psalms. Go to Psalm chapter 33.

Psalm chapter 33, verse 10. With regard to how God considers the purposes of others and how it contrasts with his own. The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing. He makes the plans of the peoples of no effect.

The counsel of the Lord stands forever. The plans of his heart to all generations. Turn over to Proverbs chapter 19. Proverbs really kind of the domain with Solomon as the writer. Solomon, in his time, he was the king.

The king bestowed with wisdom and power. I can't think in his lifetime anyone on earth greater. And yet he says in Proverbs chapter 19, verse 21. There are many plans in a man's heart. Nevertheless, the Lord's counsel, that will stand.

Even thinking back, and we've heard it, I think, quite a bit in recent days. Psalm chapter two. Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed saying, let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us.

He who sits in heaven laughs. The Lord shall hold them in derision and then he shall speak to them in his wrath and distress them in his deep displeasure. And here is his purposes, here are his plans.

God says, yet I have set my king on my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree, the Lord said to me. You are my son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession.

You shall break them with a rod of iron. You shall dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel. So, Psalm two. One more, Isaiah chapter 14, verse 26. This is the purpose that I purposed against the whole earth and this is the hand that is stretched out over all the nations.

For the Lord of hosts has purposed and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out and who will turn it back? So, God's purposes are unchanging. Finally, God's promises. And I think we'll find great comfort in these.

Human words are not stable things. Anybody in here ever broken a promise? I know I have. It is not so with God. His promises, his demands, his commands, his words of warning, go on from there, cannot be undone or changed.

Go back to the Old Testament in Numbers chapter 23. Numbers chapter 23, verse 19. God is not a man that he should lie nor a son of man that he should repent. Has he said and will he not do? Or has he spoken and will he not make it good?

Isaiah chapter 40, I read this at the end of our last lesson, the entire chapter, but this is just verses six through eight. Isaiah chapter 40, starting at verse six. The voice said, cry out. And he said, what shall I cry?

All flesh is grass and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, because the breath of the Lord blows upon it. Surely the people are grass, verse eight. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.

Psalm 119, verse 89, this whole psalm about the word of God, Psalm 119, verse 89. Forever, O Lord, your word is settled in heaven. Jesus confirms this. They use an excerpt from Steve Lawson. He wrote a great book, Show Me Your Glory, and it's been a joy to be able to read through this book and preparing for these lessons.

But on page 98, Lawson is talking about what is said regarding the word of God. He says, this declares the word of God is forever fixed and remains firm. His word does not morph with the shifting times in which we live.

It's not altered according to what the whims of society dictate. What God says is utterly reliable from one generation to the next. Confirming this point, Jesus says, for truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the law until all is accomplished, in Matthew 518.

The smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet is a yod, a minuscule mark that looks like a small apostrophe. The smallest stroke is a tittle, a tiny line protruding from a Hebrew letter that distinguishes it from another letter.

You can kind of think of it as like a serif in typeface. Okay, it's almost the difference between a lowercase i and a lowercase t. Think of how closely those look together, especially if you have bad handwriting.

Every truth spoken by God down to the smallest letter and stroke will be brought to complete fulfillment. Jesus then underscores the permanence of his word when he says in Luke chapter 16, verse 17, it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter of the law to fail.

What God says in his word and in his promises, yesterday will be true today and well into tomorrow. What the Bible declares to be right today will be right tomorrow. What God says is now wrong will be wrong forever.

From one century to the next, the moral standard set by God never shifts. Do you find comfort in that? Comfort in those words, in God's word, in a day when it seems like on the news from the day before yesterday, nobody knows who said what with the Chinese spy balloon or whatever, what do you believe?

We know we can trust God's word because God's word never changes. I want to end this section on promises. As I knew kind of this was coming up, I was coming across some quotes and I'm sure it was the Lord bringing them to me.

Some of you know Brian Save, he's a musician, he does a lot of psalms and catechisms, I think he's working on now, putting those to music, has podcasts and stuff. But on Facebook, I think it was last week, he says, burning the Bible is like blowing on a cottony white dandelion on a windy day and thinking you've conquered the little weed.

Nations rage, people's plot, and God is so unbothered that he responds with a chuckle from his throne. All flesh is grass, the word stands forever. So he's a contemporary, let's go back to the Puritans, Richard Sibbes, the honey dropper.

I remember in summer Sunday school, I attended the Puritan Sunday school class with Joe and he did such an excellent job facilitating that but was introduced to Richard Sibbes. Sibbes says, when thou art disappointed with men, retire to God and to his promises and build upon this that the Lord will not be wanting in anything to do thee good.

I wanna go ahead and close out our time saying we could continue on looking at the unchangeability of God in various aspects. We could look at and unpack God's unchanging grace in saving sinners and how that continues in his immutability.

His impassivity regarding our human emotions, how he's not affected by how sad we feel or how angry we feel or how unfair it feels. Okay, we could talk more about that. We could talk about his merciful accommodation and patience to a repentant people.

But I wanna go ahead and end with Packer and how I said at the beginning that oftentimes in our Bible reading, we feel disconnected from those people and the situations that they were in but coming through this, Packer ends and if we have a right understanding of God's immutability, he asks the question, where's the sense of distance and difference then between believers in Bible times and ourselves?

It is excluded, no difference, okay? On what grounds? On the grounds that God does not change. Fellowship with him, 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 the Old Testament and New Testament believers.

This thought brings comfort as we enter into the perplexities of each day amid all the changes and uncertainties of life, he says, in a nuclear age. We've now come out of the nuclear age and now we're in the information age and we're on the precipice of the artificial intelligence age.

Those uncertainties, when we're in those, does God and his Christ remain the same? Almighty to save. Thank God for his unchangeability that he is the same yesterday, today and forever. Would you pray with me?

Heavenly Father, I thank you so much for this time that we've had to dig into what it means for you to be immutable. You are unique in that. You never change. You had no beginning, you have no end and in the duration of all of that incomprehensible time, you have been the same.

And on that rock, we can place our hope and our trust. I thank you for this time. Please bless the rest of our prayer time this evening. Amen. Have dad come up and take prayer requests for us.