Sermon Tone Analysis

*Malachi 8.*

*[P]* Now isn’t that a cute picture?

– maybe it is just a father’s bias.

But it is a photo with significance.

There is Hannah, under the age of two, and what is she doing?

Tucking into the sweet-corn.

There is photographic evidence – and no, it is not photo-shopped – that Hannah liked sweet-corn.

Today, if you dish-up mixed veges to Hannah, the peas and beans will be consumed, and with a twisting of the arm, the carrots – but the sweet-corn gets left behind.

Hannah does not like sweet-corn – I think she may have inherited it from her uncle.

The thing is: what she once liked, she doesn’t any more – we change!

*[P]* You probably have also detected a change in her appearance.

It is not remarkable, we all change: our appearance, our likes and dislikes, our opinions and sometimes even our world-view.

The world is not the same as when I was a kid.

Things change – that is the way things are; and we are quite used to it.

But read what it says in *[P]* [*Malachi 3:6*/ //“For I, יהוה, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed./]

What a staggering, stupendous statement!

I challenge you to find anything or anyone else for who that is true.

“*/For I יהוה, do not change/*!”

Hallelujah!

Now I do not want to drag this verse out of context, and I will return to look at it in the setting of the prophecy; but it is a statement that stands alone.

It is an eternal truth: GOD DOES NOT CHANGE! *[P]* Theologians like to make things sound complicated and deep, so they talk about: “the immutability of the Deity”!

But God uses simpler language, He simply says: “/I do not change/”.

We change but God does not – this contrast is beautifully seen in *[P]* [*Psalm 90:1-17*/ //A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.

Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.

Before the mountains were born or You gave birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.

/*[P]** */You turn man back into dust and say, “Return, O children of men.”

For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it passes by, or as a watch in the night.

/*[P]* /You have swept them away like a flood, they fall asleep; in the morning they are like grass which sprouts anew.

In the morning it flourishes and sprouts anew; toward evening it fades and withers away./*

[P]*/ For we have been consumed by Your anger and by Your wrath we have been dismayed.

You have placed our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your presence.

For all our days have declined in Your fury; we have finished our years like a sigh.

/*[P]*/ As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years, or if due to strength, eighty years, yet their pride is but labour and sorrow; for soon it is gone and we fly away.

Who understands the power of Your anger and Your fury, according to the fear that is due You? /*[P]*/ So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom.

Do return, O יהוה; how long will it be?

And be sorry for Your servants.

O satisfy us in the morning with Your loving-kindness, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days./

*[P]*/ Make us glad according to the days You have afflicted us, and the years we have seen evil.

Let Your work appear to Your servants and Your majesty to their children.

Let the favour of the Lord our God be upon us; and confirm for us the work of our hands; yes, confirm the work of our hands./]

There we are, we grow old, we change, like grass that sprouts and withers; but God is eternal, unchanging, always the same!

Glory to His Name! From everlasting to everlasting He is God!

It is because He doesn’t change that He is eternal – I mean if you come into existence or cease to exist, you have changed!

Haven’t you?!

So יהוה’s eternity and immutability are intrinsically linked.

This is what Scripture says in another Psalm: *[P]* *[Psalm 102:25-27*/ //Of old You founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands.

Even they will perish /*[P]* /but You endure; and all of them will wear out like a garment; like clothing You will change them and they will be changed./

*[P]* /But You are the same, and Your years will not come to an end./]

This is what it says of Him in Job: *[P]* [*Job 23:13*/ //But He is unchangeable, and who can turn Him back?

What He desires, that He does./

(ESV)] It is just the same in the New Testament, James says: *[P]* *[James 1:17*/ //Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow./

] יהוה Himself doesn’t change, so that means that His plans and purposes stand.

His will has not altered.

He does not change His mind: [*1 Samuel 15:29*/ //“Also the Glory of Israel will not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind.”/]

His will stands firm.

Hallelujah!

His original intention was for man to be in fellowship with Him in perfect peace without sin, death and destruction.

That will has not altered one iota.

What He says, He means and He will do it – it will come to pass just as He originally intended.

[*Psalm 33:11*/ //The counsel of יהוה stands forever, the plans of His heart from generation to generation./]

It doesn’t change because יהוה doesn’t change.*

[Proverbs 19:21*/ //Many plans are in a man’s heart, but the counsel of יהוה will stand./

] יהוה is unchanging, *[P]* His purposes and will do not change.

You can rely on Him and what He says because He is not capricious – you know?

– one moment one thing and another time completely different.

Because יהוה does not change there is a constancy to Him. *[P]* But that not changing does not mean that He is utterly predictable, like a programmed machine or computer – always doing exactly the same predictable thing.

There are times where the Bible speaks of יהוה repenting or changing His mind.

In Noah’s day He repented of making man, and He regretted making Saul king.

Scripture portrays God as immutable, yet as acting, feeling emotions, and responding differently to various situations.

In all such actions, feelings, and responses, God is constant and consistent.

On the surface it appears that some biblical passages represent God as changing.

For example, He repents; changes His plan (remember He did not destroy Nineveh in Jonah’s day as He said He would); He becomes angry and then turns from His anger.

It seems that He does in fact change.

And clearly the answer is this: God’s character never changes, but His dealings with people change.

What the Bible asserts everywhere, is that God, in His character, in His being, is always eternally the same, but, obviously, in His dealings with human beings, God varies His procedure according to whether they repent or not.

In other words, when we use a term like ‘immutability’ we must be very careful that we do not deny the idea of the personality of God.

As someone once put it, I think very well, ‘The immutability of God is not the immutability of a stone.’

A stone is immutable; it never changes at all.

A stone is always a stone and never will be anything else.

But that is not the immutability of God.

His is not the immutability of lifelessness or a machine.

His is the immutability of absolute perfection.

Because God is personal in His dealings with men and women, He varies His actions.

Sometimes it appears, to mere humans, that יהוה alters His intention but He never wavers or changes in His nature, purposes, or promises.

His essential nature and character and being; who He is does not change; In fact, constancy is the chief characteristic of truth.

Truth, by definition, does not change, if it did it wouldn’t be true.

The truth is the truth because it never alters, it is consistently the same.

It is constantly the same, a pillar that stands when all else alters.

When Jesus said [*John 14:6*/ //“I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me./] – His claim to be the truth was a statement that He does not change.

God is not capricious – unlike humans.

Some people are more consistent than others; but I’ve known some people who it is like walking on egg shells – you never know how they are going to respond.

But God is consistent, faithful – you can rely on Him being who He is and reacting in accordance with His character.

He consistently hates sin; He consistently loves righteousness, He is consistently is good and full of loving-kindness.

He is gracious.

That is not going to change because He is not going to change.

There is great comfort and assurance in that stability.

The Psalmist often talks of Him being a Rock – dependable, unchanging, fixed, unmoving, unchanging, utterly secure.

God’s immutability is a great source of comfort to us as believers.

Whereas God is constant in His wrath against sin, He is equally constant in His forgiveness in response to faith and repentance.

God’s immutability grants the assurance that [*Phil 1:6* /He who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion/].