Malachi 3:6

I’m going to be looking at two packages of the Scripture, one from the Old Testament, and one from the new, and verse six. Change not. Therefore, ye sons of Jacob, consume. And then, if you would, to the New Testament, to the book of James chapter one and verse 17. James chapter one, verse 17, is from above. Is no very, neither shadow. to us is sacred this morning. You believe the knowledge and his wish to be found. It provides the divine wisdom and guidance that we need. And so you read your Bible consistently and thoughtfully and you ponder what it has to say. They become more and more puzzled. How does this relate to me? the Bible really takes you into a very different world than the one in which you live. Thousands of years old, primitive, unmechani, radio, computers, cars, trains, airplanes, the much slower-paced world than you and I live in. And in that world, you meet people like Abraham and Moses, David, and the these individuals, you see, have dealings with God. You read about the prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah, and they denounce idolatry, and they threaten judgment upon sin. In the Gospels, you read about Jesus doing miracles by killing the sick, passing out demons, raising the dead, and so forth. We find him dying for sinners on the cross. We find him. him resurrected from the dead and so forth. Then you read the New Testament epistles and you find the apostles. And sometimes they talk about some strange errors. Maybe you’re looking at it saying, well, how does this relate to me? What do I know about the Nicolaitans? What do I know about the Judaizers? It seems that everything in the Bible is so far away. And you might ask yourself, well, how can the reference? record and its dealings in Bible times help me the space age. It’s so ancient and primitive and you and I live in this advanced age. Now, there are a lot of things I can say this one. But I guess the most important thing to remember when we have this question come up is this, doesn’t. It doesn’t change is God. The God who dealt with Moses and David is the same God. A shadow in him. Thus, this is the bridge which links that ancient world to us today and makes it viable. The same God we’re dealing with. The immutability of God this morning. It is certainly a one that deserves your careful attention in his word. the God doesn’t change. I am the Lord. We see that he’s unchanging in his person. It’s perpetually the same. He is subject to no change in his being, his attributes, or his determinations. Whatever he was, way back in the book of Genesis in Abraham’s day, he is today. Thus God has compared to Deuteronomy 32 to a rock. And the waves are coming and actually moving to the rock. That’s our God. They’re saying, you know, all are subject to change, especially man. Man is fickled, often unstable in his thinking, but God is immutable. He is the everlasting one, the Father of Lights, with whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning. God does not grow, nor does his life, you know, wax and wane like ours. He doesn’t. gain new powers, he doesn’t lose previous ones. He doesn’t grow in knowledge. He doesn’t become feeble mind. He doesn’t mature or develop. He doesn’t get stronger or weaker or wiser as time goes on. He can’t change for the better. He’s already perfect. And he certainly can’t change for the worse. He is altogether unethicalized. affected by anything outside of him. Provement then or deterioration is impossible for God. He alone says, I am eternally the same in his person. Influenced by the passing of time, his glory can’t fade or be diminished in any way. Someone has said, we blossom and flourish as leaves on a tree, and then we wither and perish. but not changes thee. So he’s unchanging his person. He’s unchanging in his perfections. You know, whatever the attributes of God were, before the creation of the world, you are assured that they’re the same today, precisely the same. They are essential qualities of his being. Nothing can alter the character of God’s life. Changes take place within human beings. You know, a kind, fair may turn bitter and grouchy and impossible to please in his old age. But this can’t happen to God. He never becomes less truthful or less merciful or less merciful or less just. Perfections of God are exactly today. Read in Psalm 100 in verse 5, that his truth endures for all generations. That he’s a God of truth. Some have told us that God is a rapture. God of the Old Testament, but since Christ has come, now he’s a loving God. That’s not what the Bible says. Revelation. He’s the same. He didn’t change from the Old Testament to the New Testament. And we should never think that he had. He’s not changing in his perfectness. He’s not changing in his purposes. In Hebrew 617, we read about the immutability doesn’t change his plans, which is mine. To adjust to his plans. his plans because of man’s actions. God isn’t waiting for man as purposed. And some may object and say, well, doesn’t the Bible say in a couple of places that God repented, such in Genesis 66, he repented the Lord that he had made man. But yet, in Numbers 2319, it’s very plainly stated, God is not a man that he should lie, either the son of man that he should repent. If he literally repented, That would mean that he had to revise his plans. He had to go to plan B. He knows everything that is going to take place in time. The Bible says it’s in his overall purpose. He works all things after the counsel of his own will. Ephesians 111-11. Is there anything left out of that council? No. So he’s never taken by surprise. He’s never taken. off guard. Remember when speaking of himself, God at times accommodates his language to us as human beings and uses the word. But that’s because our limited understanding capacities. For example, in the book of Jonah, the message was, in 40 days, God is going to overthrow the city of the city of the Nunnum. And God spares. Does that mean he changed his mind? Well, read a couple more of those minor prophets you get to Nahal. And there you see the overthrow of Nineveh taking place. He delayed his judgment, but he didn’t change his judgment concerning. There is an inamute ability to God’s counsel. Now, think about this. Why would you have to change your plans? You’d have to change your plans because you lack the ability to foresee the future. You don’t anticipate what’s going to have to happen. That’s not happening with God. He’s planned at all. The second reason would be, you lack the ability to execute your plan. You have a great plan, but you can’t carry it out. Well, we’re dealing with the Almighty one. He doesn’t lack any power to carry out his plans. So God is both omniscient and omnipotent, and thus there’s no reason for his plans to be thwarted. So all that God planned in eternity, He unfailingly carries on in thought. He’s unchanging in his purposes. He’s unchanging in his pronouncements. Isaiah chapter 4, verse 5. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. God has says it, has said it, it will come to pass. The voice said, cry. And he said, what shall I cry? Goodness thereof is of the field. The grass withereth, the flower, faith, Lord, bloweth upon it. Surely the people is grass. The grass withereth the flower faded, but the word of our God tells us about, sometimes man says things that he doesn’t really mean. Simply because maybe he’s confused or maybe he’s just misguided. Sometimes your views change. You frequently find yourself unable to stand by the things you’ve said. before sometimes man sometimes we use that phrase you have to eat your words the words of men are unstable man’s promises his oaths are deceitful it’s an unmistakable expression of God’s mind prompt him to recall you know newspapers print things and sometimes they have to say well we made a mistake when he says I hate divorce in the book of Malachi. He doesn’t change in the New Testament where he tolerates divorce and it’s okay. He still hates divorce in the New Testament too. Not biblical. Jesus in his own thinking force him to amend what he has said. God is not a man that he should lie. When you read your Bible, God stands by his threats and his promises eternally. Jesus said in the New Testament, the scripture cannot be broken. It cannot be altered. be changed. Not a jot or tittle. The world stands. Not even the minor, the most minor thing about it. So your God doesn’t change. In his person, in his perfections, or in his pronoun. What implications can you draw from the fact that God doesn’t change? Well, let me suggest this. You can’t rely upon man, but you can rely upon God. There is an infinite distance that separates man from God. I would say that man and change are bound together. Man is opposed to God. The fallen man is inconsistent. In every way, he’s unlike God. The wicked are like the troubled sea, scripture says in Isaiah 57, verse 20. When it cannot rest, it’s always churning. It’s always changed. Remember what Jacob said of his eldest son. Force, I think, to all of Adam’s descendants. He’s unstable as water. Man is unstable as water. Thus, trust in princes, nor in the son of man. He is he that hap the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord is God, which keepeth truth, Psalm 146, 3, 5, and 6. If you disobey God, then you deserve to be deceived and disappointed by your fellow human days. You turn from the truth. You turn from the truth. The truth, people who like you today may hate you tomorrow. I’m reminded about the multitude that sang Hosea to the son of David when Jesus came into Jerusalem. I’m afraid they were among the crowd that were saying crucify him, crucify him a few days later. For King Saul, his son persuades him not to kill David. He was jealous of David’s popularity among the people. And so for a little while, Saul treated David civilly. But then you have him throwing the jab. It didn’t mean anything. He promised not to do it. You can count on him. His purposes are sure. The permanence of God’s character and guarantees. Isaiah 5410 says this, and the hills be removed. This shall not depart from thee. Neither shall the covenant of my peace. Secondly, let me suggest this thought to you. Your communion with God can of the men and women of the Bible. There’s no reason why you can’t have dealings with God. Yeah, there is a sense of distance and difference between believers, but God is the same. And that makes it work out. Well, fellowship with him on a similar basis is possible. Trusting in his word, walking and for living by faith, standing on his promises, are the same realities as they were for the Bible saints of all. This ought to comfort you in the midst of all the complexities of life and all the changes and all the uncertainties of our modern age. The question is this, if God is the same, why do we fall so far short of the communion and level of Christian conduct that we find with those believers that are in Scripture? We actually have more knowledge than they do. What is the same? And that’s some of an issue that we need to consider carefully. The fault, let me say this also. The immutability of God is the guarantee of your own. salvation. I go back to the verse scripture I read this morning. I change not. Therefore, on that basis, he sons of Jacob. The sons of Jacob in this passage are the true Israelites, who have been saved by the Lord. Like Jacob of old, they are the objects of God’s sovereign choice and love, as Romans 9 tell them. While there’s still sinners, man is still subject to the chastening of the Lord as a believer. He promises not to consume them in his wrath. God’s purpose of salvation will never be altered. If God has called you to salvation, he will justify you, he will sanctify you, he will sanctify you, and he will glorify you as Romans 8 tells us. Nothing can separate you from the love of God. which is found in Jesus Christ, our Lord, as Romans 8 tells us. He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ, Philippians 1 6th. If God has started a work in you, he never quits. He never gives up. He never changes his mind. He never throws into towel. He keeps working in your life. That, is a guarantee of your salvation. The Mukumaliki judgment of the nation has taken place, and they are the ones that are returning from the captivity and so forth. God’s promise was, I will not assume you, and he kept his word. Finally, let me say this. The immutability of God, the wicked. To defy God, break his laws, have no concern for his glory, live as if he doesn’t exist, or in great danger. When at last, they cry to him for mercy, plead for leniency, is God going to alter his will? Is God going to resend his awful threats? Is he going to say, well, I didn’t really mean that? Is he going to be more lenient with you? Fury, my eye shall not spare neither why I have pity, and though they cry, voice, I, he’s threatened to punish the wicked with eternal punishment in hell. He will keep that word. As you find the Bible speaking about God’s holiness and justice. So let us remember that as we go through this life. There are those who perhaps think that when I get, be merciful to me, change his thinking. Well, if you don’t know the Lord, it’s too late. Bless us. Let’s read it. That’s our word of prayer at this point. Heavenly Father, we do goodness to us. We thank you, Lord, that you don’t change, and that gives us hope and assurance and certainty. Bless us as your people. May we always profess to believe who you are and what you are. Would this morning we hope to observe the Lord’s supper. To that end, I, the Song of Solomon, Three, the Song of Solomon, whom my soul loveeth. I sought him is a continuation of what we found in chapter two. The end, the bride is mourning because she is in a state of separation. She feels the loss of communion with Christ. The mountains of Becker, speak of division from her savior. And here you find the bride’s response. We see the gloomy state here of the bride. The church is troubled because of the absence. Her perceived, I should say absence. Your union with Christ is never really long. You feel like there’s a distance in the Savior, and sometimes we find, and this is seen also in the fact that she, says she’s seeking the Lord in this passage of scripture. The fact that it’s night also indicates to as if Christ is present, he being the S-U-N of righteousness, it’s like the day breaking forth. Light appearing. The shadows flee away. This 217th speaks about. Christ’s presence makes the believer’s day, and all the gloom disappears. So it’s not unusual for you to feel this way and mourn over your loss of communion. This is God’s way of carrying on your sanctification in this life. It is repeatedly visiting you and then withdraw as we go through this life. It’s the gloomy state of the bride. Now we see the restlessness of the bride. The bride in the absence of Christ seeks him with desire so strong that it keeps her from sleeping. Your love for Christ is so intense that it supersedes your bodily needs. It is the most important thing to have Christ’s communion restored. As we read in Psalm 42, as the heart panteth so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God. The craving of a healthy soul. In trial and affliction and spiritual desertion, the soul is particularly restless and needs to know that Christ is close by. The restlessness of the. Thirdly, we see the remedy the bride pursues. I sought him. I sought him. Instead of being in despair and reproaching yourself, well, seek the Lord. These withdrawals by the Savior test your faith. They test the steadfastness of your love toward him. They lead you to a deeper searching for secret sins and promote humility because you’re made to feel your weakness and your need of Christ’s community. And so you’re moved by the Spirit to fervently and diligently and whole heartedly seek the Lord. So the remedy, the bride pursues. Lastly, we see the bride’s disappointment, but I found him not. While she seeks whom she loveth, she’s not immediately successful. We’ll look at verse two later and see that she intensifies her efforts, but she’s not successful immediately there either. Christ often waits to try your faith and patience. Make you more earnest and diligent in your searching for him. Eventually Christ would have you prize his presence more. Be more careful. Brides disappointment here. Lord’s supper, it’s a great loss to be and Christ communes with his people. Take the supper. When you feel the loss of communion with Christ, don’t despair, but come to the Lord’s. supper as a means of diligently seeking its restoration. When you feel the loss of communion with Christ, keep in mind that the Lord is developing your various graces. So there is a good purpose behind it all. Speaking on this passage, said the Lord Christ is pleased sometimes to withdraw himself from the spiritual experience of believers as unto any refreshing sense of his love or the fresh communications of solitary graces. Those who have never experienced any such thing, who have never had any refreshing communion with him, cannot be sensible of his absence. They never were of his presence. We’ll sense these times. We’ll sense these times. of withdrawal. Then we finally say this. Christ still loves you. He encourages you to partake of his supper. You’re never utterly cut off because he seeks your spiritual improve. That is partly what the Lord’s Supper is all about. Is our communion with Christ. How does it stand? Let us think that over. Ponder it. and maybe we need to seek the one whom we love or diligently ourselves to close with with you.