God's unchangeableness is presented as a foundational truth, contrasting His eternal nature with the transient nature of creation and human experience. The sermon draws from Psalm 102:25-27 and other scriptures like Malachi 3:6 and James 1:17 to illustrate that God's nature, attributes, plans, and purposes remain constant. This immutability means God is always perfect, omniscient, omnipotent, and wise, never growing weary or changing His mind, which offers profound comfort and assurance to believers. The sermon concludes that while this truth is a warning to the unsaved, it is a source of unwavering hope and security for those in Christ, assuring them that God's love and promises are eternally steadfast.
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Well, it's been an absolute delight for Nancy and myself to be here with you this week. Some of you were asking for rain, so we brought rain. Now it's been here for long enough that I think some of you are asking for us to take it away, and we're leaving, and I think the rain is going to go away. We will be leaving very early tomorrow morning. We have a seven o'clock flight out of Jacksonville, so we're not trying to run away from you all. We have had a, it's just been a wonderful time to get to know so many of you and to fellowship with you and talk about spiritual things with you.
So we have had such a good time here. We'll be getting off very early in the morning and probably won't have a chance to say goodbye tomorrow, but we will say goodbye today, and hopefully that will be a temporary goodbye. We will all see you again someday, if not here. We will see you in the presence of the Lord. I'd like you to turn to Psalm one hundred and two today. I'm going to do something a little bit different. In the past days, we've been looking at at individual Psalms and we have been looking at pretty much the whole Psalm. Today I would like to look at, I would like to start off with three verses in Psalm one hundred and two.
And then I would like to talk about one of the wonderful characteristics of God. That is his unchangeableness. That is what these verses psalm one hundred and two verses twenty five to twenty seven that is what these verses are talking about the unchangeableness of God it says of old you laid the foundation of the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands they will perish but you will endure yes all of them will grow old like a garment like a cloak you will change them and they will be changed But you are the same and your years have no end.
There is a contrast here between God himself and all of his creation. And the psalmist is saying that he is unchangeable. Everything else that you can see or everything else that you know about in this creation changes. Some of the ancient philosophers built their whole philosophy around the fact that everything changes. The philosopher Heraclitus was emphasizing this. He would say, you never step into the same river twice. The water that you step in today is down the river tomorrow.
It's different water. You never breathe the same air twice. The seasons change. Governments change. Can you believe how different the maps of the world look today than they did ten or fifteen years ago? We see all kinds of countries listed on the maps today that many of us did not know existed fifteen years ago. You look at the breakup of the Soviet Union and now you see Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and Turkistan and all kinds of countries that I never knew existed there.
Governments change. The world changes. There are changes in us. We change. But God does not change. That is a wonderful, wonderful truth that we would like to emphasize this morning. People change. Do people ever disappoint you? When I was first saved, there was a young man in high school who had been saved about a year longer than I had. This young man had a tremendous influence in my life. He was one who got me interested in Bible study.
He would read not only the Bible, he would read Bible commentaries. He was interested in preaching the Word of God. God used this young man in my life. Had a tremendous impact. A year later, he went off to college. And in his four years of college, he gave up the faith. He changed. And that change disappointed me greatly. Sometimes my students, have changed and that change has not been for the better. They have disappointed me.
I've had some students who have been excellent students, who have been on fire for God, who have seen to love the Lord. You look at them and you say, this is a person of tremendous promise that is going to be used by God greatly. And they go out and their faith, which was so fervent, While I had them in my class, cools off, becomes cold, and they do nothing for God. They change. And that change is a disappointment. The fact is that all of us change.
The world we live in changes. Creation is changeable. But our God does not change. You are the same. Your years have no end. You are the same. The same yesterday, the same today, and the same forever. Now, this is the truth about God that we would like to consider today. And I would like to go through a number of different scriptures that talk about God's unchangeableness, And then I would like us to consider it further and see particularly what it means to say that God is unchangeable and what it means for us.
What is the importance of this truth for us? Listen to the following scriptures. Malachi chapter three and verse six. God is speaking. He says, I, the Lord, do not change. Therefore, O sons of Jacob, You are not consumed. I do not change. James one seventeen. Every good and perfect gift is from above. From the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation, nor shadow of turning. James one seventeen. With him there is no variation.
Numbers twenty-three nineteen. 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 it, or has he spoken and will he not make it good? Isaiah forty-six ten. My purpose will be established and will be accomplished and will accomplish all my good pleasure. My purpose will be established. psalm thirty three eleven the council of the lord stands forever psalm one ten verse four the lord has sworn and he will not repent god does not change he does not change in his nature he does not change in his attributes he does not change in his plans or purposes What this means is that there is no growth or development with God.
When you look at the God of the New Testament, He is the same God as the God of the Old Testament. When you look at God today, He is the same God. He is exactly the same today as He was in biblical times. That is why the Bible is not an outdated book. The culture that we live in today is different from the culture of people in biblical times, but God is the same, and His perfections are the same, His ways are the same, His way of thinking is the same. He is still dealing with men today exactly as he was during the days of the Bible.
That is why this is such a relevant book. Now, how specifically is God unchangeable? We've said He's unchangeable in His nature, He's unchangeable in His attributes, and He's unchangeable in His plans. Look at how God is unchangeable in His very nature, in His essential being. God is perfect. If He really is perfect, then it's impossible for Him to change. If he is perfect and he changes for the better, then he wouldn't be perfect in the first place.
If he's perfect and he changes for the worse, then he would cease to be perfect. If he simply changed, then there would be some kind of growth or development. But how can a God who is perfect grow or develop? There is simply no possible reason for any change in God if He is perfect. He can't learn something new that would cause Him to change. Nothing can happen that He did not foresee that would cause Him to change. He is always consistent with Himself and nothing can happen.
that would cause him to be less perfect than he is. Our God is unchanging in his very nature. He is unchanging in his attributes. Sometimes it is helpful to consider some of his specific attributes and consider how he is unchanging. For instance, God is unchanging in his location in his place. He is omnipresent. He is everywhere at once. And because he is everywhere, he never has to change in location.
If you've ever read Homer's Iliad, the famous classic writing of the Greeks, in the Iliad, Achilles' wants his mother to contact Zeus for him. But Zeus has gone off on a trip and he won't return for two weeks. And so he's not available at this time. Wouldn't that be tragic? If you have a need, you want the Lord, but he's off on a journey. He's not available.
He's changed His location. That never happens with God. He is always with us. He is always here because He is omnipresent. He never changes His location. Secondly, His power is unchanging. Our God is all-powerful. He is omnipotent. He never gets weary or tired out. his power never diminishes because he grows old back in nineteen sixty four I started running when I was young this was this was before the the running era no one else was running in those days we were living in Dallas and even in the summertime I was running and there was nobody on the streets of Dallas that was running in those days I would be running down the street and the cops would see me.
And they would say, what is this crazy guy doing running in the summertime? And so I'd be running down the street and all of a sudden this cop car would come flying past me and cut right in front of me and cut me off. What is he running for? Well, when I was that aged, I believed that if I kept working out, If I kept running, if I kept exercising, if I exercised regularly, I would stay in shape and I would always feel the same. You know, it hasn't worked out that way.
Today I still run, but the miles are a lot slower. And when I come to a hill, I don't bound up the hill the same way. I used to like running hills. Now every hill is a chore. My legs feel like lead. And I can't run every day the way I used to. I used to be able to run every day. Now it started I had to have a day off between days of running. Now I need two days off between two. days of running.
I can see my strength slipping away just through the years. God's strength doesn't slip away. He doesn't grow old. He does not lose his strength. He can do everything today that he did today. Two thousand years ago. He is just as strong today as when he called the world into existence. Our God is unchanging in his power. He does not grow old. He does not wear out. His strength does not slip away. We have an almighty God.
And we can count on the fact that the Almighty God of the past is our Almighty God of the future because He does not change. Isn't that wonderful? He is also unchanging in His knowledge. God is omniscient. He knows all things. He knows everything that has ever happened. He knows everything that is taking place right now. And in fact, He knows everything that will happen in the future. You know, God not only knows what has happened, happened, is happening, and will happen, He knows everything that could happen.
That means He does not know more today than He did yesterday. the evidence that the things that take place in the world the things that take place in your life they do not increase his knowledge one of the one of the new newer doctrines and I have have seen it in a number of evangelical theologians because they believe in the absolute free will of man, some of them are saying that even God does not know the decisions that a free individual is going to make.
God doesn't know them before he happens, before they happen. This kind of doctrine is called the openness of God theology. What it means is that the future is open to God. That is He doesn't really know what is going to happen in the future. And so those who hold this could not say that God never changes. They are saying that God is growing in his knowledge. He is finding out new things. He doesn't know what men are going to do for sure before they do them.
And so God is increasing in his knowledge. He is growing. He is changing. The Bible says that God is the same yesterday, today. He never changes. Whether something is past, present, or future does not affect his knowledge. When something has happened, he remembers it with absolute perfection. Before something happens, he knows it perfectly, exactly as it is going to take place. Because God is omniscient, he does not change in his knowledge.
This openness view of God is very much of a lesser view of God. All they are giving us is some Greek Zeus, who is a powerful being, but not the omniscient, unchangeable God of Scripture. Because God is perfect in his knowledge. He is also perfect in his wisdom. He always makes the wisest choices. Haven't you looked back on your life? and wished at times you had made different choices.
I go back to my teenage years when I was first saved and I wish that I had done some things differently with my parents. I look back on my college days and I wished I had taken some different courses. I look at when my children were young and I wished that I could have done some different things in raising my children. There are a lot of things I have learned through the years. I think that I am wiser now.
I think that I am wiser now. Now I don't have an opportunity to exercise all of that wisdom in the situations that I faced when I was younger. So one of the things that is unfortunate about youth is that it is wasted on young people. If we could only have the wisdom that we have today in living our life over, God doesn't give us that kind of opportunity. Most of us feel. We have learned a few things through the years. And we are wiser now than we once were.
God doesn't feel that way. God has not grown in his wisdom. He never looks back on any of the choices that he has made or any of the things that he has done. He never looks back and regrets. what he has done or the decision that he has made. He never has made a wrong choice because his choices are always the wisest choices. He never learned something today that puts a different light on what he has done in the past because he always knew perfectly all of the options how everything would turn out regardless of the option, and he always made the right choice.
His first choice was always made with perfect knowledge and wisdom, and therefore God is unchanging in his wisdom. That's terrific. He is unchanging in his character. His basic character, love, goodness, holiness, righteousness, God is always the same. He always loves that which is good and he always hates that which is evil. It is not possible for God to change in this area. A friend of mine used to pray, God, keep me from becoming a crotchety old man.
Now, sometimes that happens to us. We'd become cynical and bitter and calloused and indifferent. Do you ever worry about God becoming a crotchety old God? It's impossible. It's impossible because it's impossible for His love and His goodness and His grace and His mercy and His holiness and his righteousness, it's impossible for all of these perfections of God to ever change. God is unchangeable in his basic nature.
He is unchangeable in all of his attributes or perfections. God is also unchangeable in his plans and purposes. If God is is perfect in his wisdom and he is perfect in his power then he never has to change any of his plans whatever he has planned he is planned with perfect wisdom and whatever he plans he is able to execute with perfect power he never changes a lot of times we determine to do something We resolve to do something, and then we change.
We may learn something that would cause us to change our plans. Sometimes we lack the willpower to carry through what we have determined or resolved. Sometimes we just change our minds. God never does. Sometimes new circumstances come in our lives that cause us to change our plan. God is never faced with new circumstances that were unforeseen. God never has to put into effect plan B because something came up and plan A wasn't working out quite the way he had expected.
There is no plan B. Plan A is always... perfect with God and it is based on perfect knowledge and wisdom. Do you think that God was caught by surprise when Adam sinned in the garden? This openness of God theology says, yeah, God was caught by surprise. And then all of a sudden he had to scramble to come up with some remedy for this situation of sin entering into the world. God didn't have to scramble around.
God was not caught by surprise by Adam's sin. When he created man, he knew that sin would enter into the human race. He knew from the very beginning that this sin would cost the life of his The Bible says that Christ was foreordained before the foundation of the world. God was not caught by surprise. We sometimes get caught up with the sinfulness and the chaos of this world.
Things seem to be falling apart. And we wonder, has God lost control? No. He is working out His plan. He takes all things, even the sinful acts of men, and He causes them to praise Him. God has never had to change His plans. He is unchangeable. Now, I know that the Bible does present a number of passages where there is the appearance of change in God, where God seems to change. God does some things that make us think that He has changed.
For instance, there are some passages where God is said to repent of what He has done. First example of that is found in Genesis chapter six, in the days of Noah. It says that God saw the wickedness of men, and the Lord was sorry that he made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart Genesis six six you also might remember in the book of Jonah God told Jonah to go to announce to the Ninevites that in forty days he was going to destroy that city Jonah went and preached the Ninevites repented and it says that God saw their deeds that they turned from their wicked way, then God repented concerning the calamity which he had declared he would bring upon them, and he did not do it.
Now when you read those verses, it seems like God has changed his mind. But I'd like you to notice that in both of those two incidents, and you'll find others like this in Scripture, it was not really God that changed. It was men who had changed. God was always the same in his character and in his attitudes. He always loves righteousness and hates evil. In the first instance with the days of Noah, men had changed. They had become sinful and God was consistent in his character and response to sin.
He is a holy God. He hates sin. When men turn from him and turn to sin, they find that they are no longer in his favor. And so they were the objects of his wrath. It was the men in the days of Noah who had changed, not God. When you look at the Ninevites, they were a wicked people. And God announced judgment on them. and then they repented. Would you expect God to act in the same way to the repentant Ninevites as he did toward the, as he would have done toward the unrepentant Ninevites?
If you say that you expect God to act the same way, Then you're saying it doesn't make any difference whether men repent of their sin or not. Well, that's not the way God is. He looks upon repentant sinners differently than he does unrepentant sinners because he is consistent in his attitude towards sin. He hates those who are sinful in a rebellion against him. and he acts graciously towards those who repent and respond to his message.
The same rays of the sun that melt the wax harden the clay. It is not the sun that changes. It is the difference between the objects on which the sun shines. God remains consistent. but he treats differently different types of individuals because of their sin or because of their obedience. So God in Scripture is said to repent or to change in that way, but he is not the one who is actually changing.
It is men who are changing. Some have looked at creation. And it said, wasn't there a change with God in creation? When he created this universe, there was something there that there was not there before. And some have thought that if God is really unchangeable, some of the philosophers have thought that if God is really unchangeable, then he must be immobile. He must be static, not doing anything. Well, that is not the unchangeable God of the Bible.
When God acted in creation, he did what he planned to do from a past eternity. God can create changeable things. That's what this world is. This world is changeable. He can create changeable things without changing himself in his plans or in his character. He responds to changeable things in a way that is consistent with his character, and he responds in a way that he has always planned to do. Creation has not changed God. Well, some people have thought that the incarnations, changed God.
What happened when God became man? Was that not a change in God? You have in John one in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. Verse fourteen and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. Was there not a change in the second person of the Trinity? Well, consider what happened when Jesus Christ became man, when God the Son entered into this world. Did He cease to be God? Did He cease to have the attributes and perfections of God?
His deity did not change. When He became man, He took upon Himself a human nature. He added a human nature. He in His divine nature did not change. If His divine nature had become a human nature, that would be a change. If a human nature, a human person, becomes divine, that would be a change. If you take deity and humanity and you mix them together, Sort of like you mix two substances so that you get a different thing.
That would be a change. But what you had was not the mixture of deity and humanity. You didn't have the ceasing of his deity or the change of his deity, but rather with the incarnation. God the Son, who was fully God, took upon himself a human nature. He added a human nature so that now there were two natures, but there was no change in his deity. There was no change at all in his deity. He is now both God and man, but he is still fully God and his divine nature and all its perfections have not changed.
God does not change. What about prayer? Does prayer change things? Do we change God's mind through prayer? Some have asked if God does not change, if His will is already determined, if He has already planned to determine what He is going to do, what good is prayer? Why pray? It has already been foreordained and determined. Now prayer does not make an unwilling God willing. And even though God's plans are already determined, He uses different means to accomplish His plans and purposes.
I think one of the things that's very important for us to realize is that God uses means. God uses means. For instance, let's look at another area, an example. One of the things that's said in the book of Job is that our days are numbered. The days of our lives are numbered. They're fixed, determined, foreordained by God. You are going to live so many days in your life. Now, if that is a fixed number, if it is determined by God, then why bother to eat?
Why bother to eat? You see what I'm saying? Even though God has determined the end, there are certain means which are absolute requirements for attaining to that end. One of the means that God has chosen for us to obtain the determined end is for us to eat. And if you don't eat, you're not going to live that fixed number of days, or else you're going to find that the number of days determined for your life is much shorter than it might have been.
God not only ordains the end, He also ordains the means. Now when it comes to prayer, prayer is one of those means that God ordains, that God uses to accomplish His purposes. God does work through prayer, just as He works through our eating for us to live a certain length of life. He works through prayer for us to accomplish certain plans and purposes. And if you don't pray, that end will not be accomplished. If you do pray, that end will be accomplished, just as if you don't eat.
Those length of days will not be accomplished. If you do eat, they will be. Prayer is one of the means that God uses to accomplish His plans. Does that mean that God changes? No. It means that He works through the means that He has ordained in His whole sovereign plan and purpose. God is unchanging. He is unchanging in His nature. He is unchanging in His character. He is unchanging in His plans. There may be appearance of change with God, but there is no real change in God.
This is the truth of Scripture. Now, what's the significance of that to us? What is the importance of this truth for us? This is a great doctrine. This is a great truth. It is one of those good news, bad news kinds of truth. God does not change. That is bad news for those who are determined to continue in their sin. That is bad news for the lost. God does not change. Because it means that God is not only a God of love, He is also a holy God who hates sin.
And the God who is holy today, and the God who is the righteous judge today, will judge sin in the future. He has decreed that all of those who are outside of Christ will suffer the wrath of God in eternal judgment. And those who are lost will not wake up in some future day in the presence of God and find that God has suddenly changed his mind, that he has suddenly decided that he will let them off the hook and that he will pardon them. God, the God of love and mercy, the God who is long suffering and not willing that any should perish, has appointed a day in which he will judge the world.
And when that day comes, men will be cut off from any further opportunity of repentance. And because God does not change, they will have no further chance. That should be a frightening prospect for anyone who has not trusted Christ as their Savior. But to those of us who are believers, to those who are children of God. This truth of the unchangeableness of God is a wonderful, comforting doctrine.
You know what it means? It means that even though any other person can disappoint you, God will never disappoint you. Your wife can disappoint you. Your husband can disappoint you. Your children can disappoint you. Your best friends can disappoint you. People you work with and associate with can fail you and disappoint you. God will never fail you. And He will never disappoint you. He loves you. He cares for you. He sustains you. and he supports you and he will always do it in the future as he has done it in the past.
When you look at this creation, you may suffer material loss. You may lose everything that you have had materially. You may lose all of your finances. You may be reduced to poverty. Somebody was telling me about one of the homes here. that was caught up in a sinkhole. Well, here, your material possessions, all of a sudden, what are they, eighty feet below the ground? You can lose your material possessions. You can be wiped out. You can lose your friends. Now, I'd rather lose my material possessions than I would lose my friends.
But some of your friends can disappoint you. There are a couple of friends of mine who are going through a very hard time because people that they were close to a few years ago, they're not close to now. Their friends have disappointed them. You can replace possessions. You can't replace a friend, a friend. You can lose your health. Some of you have felt your body becoming weak and sick, and you seem to be falling apart. You can lose your health. The world around us can go into turmoil when you look at some of the conflicts in the last decade, in Iran, in Bosnia, Yugoslavia, some of the places in Africa.
You see chaos and turmoil in the world. We expect that kind of change in this world. But we don't have to expect that kind of change with God. He does not change. He does not fail. He does not disappoint. You can suffer the loss of anything in the world, but you will never suffer the loss of the Lord. He is dependable. The Lord Jesus said, I will never leave you and I will never forsake you. And that's a wonderful truth.
His love, His love never wanes. His love never lessens. Second Timothy two nineteen says, Nevertheless, the firm foundation of God stands having this seal. The Lord knows those who are His. If you belong to God, if you are a child of God, this verse says, the Lord knows those who are His, and you will never cease to be a child of God. We may get discouraged. We may get depressed. We may not feel like God loves us very much.
Our sense of failure, sometimes our sense of sin will convict us to the point we say, God could not really love me the way I am. But even though we have changed, He has not changed. God is never going to divorce His children. He's never going to throw us out. and renounce us or disown us. Because God doesn't change. You know that means He never has a bad day. You ever come home, your husband, your wife are grumpy, crotchety, you know, they're just in a bad mood.
You haven't done anything but they're snapping at you. God never has a bad day. you will never find him in a bad mood or out of sorts. He is unchangeable. Even when he disapproves of the things that we have done and even when he disciplines us and chastens us for our sin, he still loves us. Romans five and Romans eight are two just wonderful chapters in the Bible that tell about the unchangeableness of God's love for us. The Bible says in these chapters that if God loved us so much when we were sinners, that He gave us His Son, that His Son died for us.
If when we were enemies and rebels, He gave His Son to die for us, then there is nothing that is ever going to be able to separate us from Him. If we have trusted Christ and been saved by God's grace, then there is nothing that is ever going to make us unsaved. Romans eight, thirty-eight and thirty-nine. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus.
Isn't that terrific? Isn't it? If God is unchanging, His promises are sure. The Bible says that even though we may be unfaithful, He remains faithful. He cannot deny himself. He cannot change his character. If he has promised something, it is guaranteed. And if he is unchangeable, and his plans and purposes are unchangeable, and if he has done all things according to his perfect wisdom, we can be sure that everything is going to turn out perfectly, all right.
just the way He has wanted it to. He is a sovereign God in perfect control. And even though we may not recognize it, everything is still on schedule. He will never change. He will never change. He will never change. Let us pray. Father, we do rejoice.