The Immutability of God
Ps 102:12-28
12 But you, O LORD, sit enthroned forever; your renown endures through all generations.
13 You will arise and have compassion on Zion, for it is time to show favor to her; the appointed time has come.
14 For her stones are dear to your servants; her very dust moves them to pity.
15 The nations will fear the name of the LORD, all the kings of the earth will revere your glory.
16 For the LORD will rebuild Zion and appear in his glory.
17 He will respond to the prayer of the destitute; he will not despise their plea.
18 Let this be written for a future generation, that a people not yet created may praise the LORD:
19 "The LORD looked down from his sanctuary on high, from heaven he viewed the earth,
20 to hear the groans of the prisoners and release those condemned to death."
21 So the name of the LORD will be declared in Zion and his praise in Jerusalem
22 when the peoples and the kingdoms assemble to worship the LORD.
23 In the course of my life he broke my strength; he cut short my days.
24 So I said: "Do not take me away, O my God, in the midst of my days; your years go on through all generations.
25 In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.
26 They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded.
27 But you remain the same, and your years will never end.
28 The children of your servants will live in your presence; their descendants will be established before you."
Immutability is one of the attributes of God, one of those characteristics that describe his essential nature. To say that God is immutable is to say that He never differs from Himself. He cannot change for the better since He is perfectly holy. Neither can God change for the worse. It is impossible for Him to change in any manner!
And, oh how we need to emphasize this truth today. Why? Because the world today seems to be in a constant state of flux. Change is taking place all about us. In fact, we have seen more radical changes in the 20th century than in all the centuries past.
This shouldn’t surprise us because Daniel the prophet foretold it. In Daniel 12:4, he wrote, “…people will be running to and fro, and knowledge will increase.”
Even in the last ten years we have witnessed a social revolution in our own country that almost defies description. Fashions, language, customs, values, morals, and a thousand other things have undergone tremendous changes. With the rapid advancement of computer technology, yesterday’s discoveries have become today’s antiquity.
Some days I feel a close affinity to Henry F. Lyte, the hymn-writer. In his hymn, Abide With Me, there is a stanza that says, “Change and decay in all around I see, O Thou who changest not, abide with me.”
I’ve often thought of those who have lived for the past 90 or 100 years and how much change they have observed—especially in the fields of transportation, medicine, and communication.
No books were published until the year 1500. By the year 1900, 35,000 books were published each year. In 1995, 500,000 new books were published.
What about changes in speed? For the first 1800 years since Christ, the top speed was 20 miles per hour by horseback. The train came along and it jumped to 100 miles per hour. When the passenger jet came along in 1952, it whisked through the sky at over 300 miles per hour. By 1979 that speed had doubles to 600 to 700 miles per hour. Then the manned rockets came along a few years later and now they speed through space at about 20,000 miles per hour!
Communication? From telegraph to telephone to e-mail. It makes your head swim.
Sociologists are careful to point out the devastating effect of all this on humanity. Such constant and rapid change is leaving mankind with a feeling of instability and insecurity. There’s a feeling by many that we have been cut loose from our moorings—drifting along, as though pulled by the current of change. This produces confusion and fear.
We are told that one of the major causes of stress is change:
Marital status
Occupation
Health
Finances
Relocation
Retirement
Death of a spouse
But I am here to remind you, my friends, that there are still many things in life that remain constant in the midst of an ever changing world.
1. Sin Has Not Changed
Men have tried to change it’s name. They call adultery “an affair.” They call homosexuality a “gay lifestyle.” They call abortion (killing of the innocent) “a pregnancy termination.” In short, they call sin a mistake.
Man calls sin an accident; God calls it an abomination.
Man calls it a blunder; God calls it blindness.
Man calls it a defect; God calls it a disease.
Man calls it an infirmity; God calls it iniquity.
Sin is still causing people to cheat and lie and kill and rob—and it continues to happen everywhere, regardless of culture or race or region.
Sin takes us where we don’t want to go, keeps longer than we want to stay, and costs us more than we would ever want to pay.
The effects of sin remain the same. It is still responsible for despair, pain, suffering, disease, war, and death. We can deny its existence but the fact is that we continue to build more and more prisons, more and more alcohol and drug-treatment centers.
Illus.: “Pet Sins”
For 8 years, Sally had been the Romero family pet. She was only one foot long when they brought her home. But Sally grew and grew until eventually she reached a length of 11 feet and weighed 80 pounds. Then one day, Sally, a Burmese python, turned on 15-year old Derek, strangling him until he suffocated and died. Police said that the snake was “quite aggressive, hissing, and reacting” when they arrived to investigate the young man’s death.
Sin is like that. When a sin first enters our lives, we think of it as harmless, almost cute. Yet it doesn’t stay small. It has a way of growing. We think we candle it, but then it begins to handle us. And it always leads to death.
Sad to say, the only things that has changed about sin is our attitude toward it. We need to realize it’s devastating effects on our lives. It’s ruining our health, tearing apart our emotions, breaking up our families and destroying any chance of being united with God in eternity.
2. Sorrow Has Not Changed
When Adam and Eve looked with broken hearts on the lifeless body of Abel after he had been murdered by Cain, that was the beginning of the crushing sorrow that fills human hearts. Sorrow is the universal language of the world today.
Even while we sit here in these comfortable surroundings, tears are being shed the world over. There is weeping and wailing in New York, Afghanistan, Israel, and wherever the grim reaper has passed by.
Whether the result of disease, natural disaster, divorce, or some other calamity, sorrow fills our planet.
3. Death Has Not Changed
We may make light of it, avoid discussing it, try to postpone it, and even try to escape it, but death is still here.
The Grim Reaper still stalks the earth, going about his grizzly business. His blade cuts a wide path, striking the young as well as the old, the rich as well as the poor, the noble as well as the common, the good as well as the evil. Case in point: David, the teenaged son of a pastor from Waterloo.
We may delay his coming but he still comes.
Sin, sorrow, death. These have not changed. Therefore, man’s need for a Savior has not changed. He is still available. Not all is dark. There is still hope. There is Someone we can depend on, Someone we can cling to in a changing and yet changeless world.
The Bible says that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb.13:8).
His love is the same, for it is everlasting. Jeremiah 31:3: “The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying, ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love…’”
His keeping is the same, as attested to by I Pt.1:5: “…who through faith are kept by God’s power until the coming of salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last day.”
His power is the same, for it is enduring. I Tim.6:16: “…who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light…”
His promises are the same, for they are everlasting. Jesus said, “Heaven and earth may pass away, but my words will never pass away.”
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of the Lord abides forever.
Forever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven.
In His changelessness, His immutability, Jesus is still:
Seeking the lost sheep
Praying for the saints at the Father’s right hand
Cleansing the sinner
Inviting “whosoever will” to the banquet
Illus.: “I Can’t Change Jesus”
Bill Irwin, a man who is blind, has a talking computer he uses to study the Bible. He’s had a few chuckles over some of the pronunciations. "For a long time," Bill says, "the computer pronounced Holy Bible as ’holly bibble’ until I figured out how to modify it." But there was one thing Bill couldn’t change. The computer uses the Spanish pronunciation for Jesus Christ--HEYsus Krist. "The programmer is Hispanic," Bill told me with a smile, "and he made sure that HEYsus Krist cannot be altered."
I like that. It reminds me that among the things in life that can be changed to suit my taste, one remains tamper-resistant--I can’t change Jesus.
When life is unsettled, I gain great comfort from the Bible’s affirmation that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Heb. 13:8). But the statement is also a stern rebuke to my tendency to try to modify the words and character of Christ when I don’t like what He says. How easy it is to forget that I came to Christ longing for Him to transform me, not the other way around! Praise God that His Word and His love are perfect and unchanging. And praise Him too that in His love He is working to change me
Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father!
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not;
As Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be. --Chisholm
Aren’t you glad that God is not like men, who change from day to day, if not from moment to moment?
Malachi 3:6: “I am the Lord, I change not; therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed.”
James 1:17: Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
There is One who is constant in a world that is ever-changing. Put your faith in this Christ. He is our Rock. He can be trusted.
