Encounter the Truth

Jonathan Griffiths: The unchangeability or the immutability of God is a wonderful Bible truth. It's basic Christian orthodoxy. Believers have understood and affirmed this throughout church history. But what does it mean for us that our God is immutable? And what are the implications?

Steve Hiller: You're listening to Encounter the Truth with Jonathan Griffiths. And when you ask a big question like that, you’ve got to know where I'm going with this, Jonathan. What are the implications of that truth?

Jonathan Griffiths: Well, they're huge. We are in a world where almost everything changes. Nothing can be relied upon to stay the same. We're seeing change all around us: social change, legal change. We're seeing our world transformed before our very eyes. We are in these days of rapid transformation on all kinds of levels.

But the Bible tells us that the God we worship and the God we trust is immutable. He doesn't change, and all kinds of truths and implications flow from that. We're going to see that as the message unfolds. But we're going to see principally and first of all that God's standards in His Word don't change. And that's something that's very, very significant for us to grapple with as we seek to honor Him in our own lives. We'll go on then to see that His purposes and His promises are unchanging, too. And those are very, very wonderful truths to consider. But there's a lot to unwrap here.

Steve Hiller: Well, let's begin to do that. Glad that you're with us as we begin this message called "The Unchanging God." Here is Jonathan.

Jonathan Griffiths: I've mentioned before we live as a family on the south side of Ottawa, and we're finding these days each time we drive north into town that the landscape is changing. A new apartment complex is going up. New ground is being turned over for a fresh subdivision. It is a time of constant and relentless change in our part of town. Now, that's energizing and that's exciting on one level, but there's something just a little bit destabilizing about it, too.

We're planning to head back to the UK this summer, and one of the things we're looking forward to is going to revisit some favorite places, some places that seem immune to change. Some beautiful villages in the countryside, some castles, some country homes where things have been more or less the same for more or less as long as anyone can remember. I think all of us actually love those fixed points in life, those places that never seem to change very much, that seem to stay the same through all the variations of the years and the decades. That's comforting to us because we live in a rapidly changing world, and we ourselves are constantly changing, constantly developing, and not to be too morbid about it, constantly declining as we move each day that little bit closer to the grave.

When I was at university, the retired pastor of the church I attended had stayed around as part of the church family. He was this wonderfully eccentric English gentleman in his 70s or early 80s at that stage and still very sprightly. He could regularly be seen traveling around Oxford on his bicycle. And I used to say to him, "David, how are you doing today? Nice to see you." And he would respond always the same way with a twinkle in his eye. He would simply say, "The deterioration is remarkably slow." And that's an understated English way of saying, "I'm very well today, thank you so much for asking."

And of course, we're all glad if the deterioration is slow rather than rapid, but deterioration is inevitable, isn't it? That's the experience, of course, that the Psalmist is talking about in Psalm 102. It's his focus in verse 3: "For my days vanish like smoke, my bones burn like glowing embers." And again in verse 11: "My days are like the evening shadow; I wither away like grass." Now, that's our reality, and that's the reality of the world itself. Again, the Psalmist cuts to the heart of the issue, verse 25: "In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. 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."

We ourselves are changing, we're declining. Our world is changing and will not last. But against that rather depressing backdrop, the Psalmist proclaims the glorious truth that God Himself never changes. Against the background of all that change and decline, verse 12: "But you, O Lord, sit enthroned forever; your renown endures through all generations." Against the background of our world's perishing, verse 28: "But you remain the same, and your years will never end." The Lord is the unchanging one. All else will change and decay, much else will disappear, but the eternal God does not and will not. It's the sentiment that the hymn writer captures so well: "We blossom and flourish like leaves on a tree, then wither and perish; but naught changeth thee."

It's a truth that the Bible affirms again and again, not least in Psalm 102, but we find it elsewhere all over the place. Malachi 3:6: "I the Lord do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob," despite all your sin, despite all your unfaithfulness, despite all your rebellion, "so you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed." 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." Or Hebrews 13:8: "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever."

In fact, as we think about it, the very name by which God introduces Himself to Moses, the great covenant name of God, the name "I Am," it carries within it the truth that God never changes. He is the one who was and is and is to come, always the same, simply the great I Am. Of the unchangeableness of God, Samuel Willard wrote that we should live upon this attribute. It is enough to keep up your spirits and strengthen you with patience to run that weary and difficult race that you are called unto. It is true, he continues, you meet with many changes among creatures. Yea, there is nothing here but what is changeable. You are tossed up and down from one change to another. Yet faint not, nor be weary, for in all these you have an unchangeable God to stand by you.

The unchangeability or the immutability of God is a wonderful Bible truth. It's basic Christian orthodoxy. Believers have understood and affirmed this throughout church history. But what does it mean for us that our God is immutable? And what are the implications? Well, there are many. In the first place, the fact that God is immutable means that His character does not change, cannot change, will never change.

It's awful, isn't it, to have to interact with unstable or fickle people? Perhaps someone very driven by moods and emotions, prone to changing their mind all the time. You never know what a day will bring, which way the wind will be blowing. And it can be a fearful thing to have to interact with a person like that. Maybe you've got someone like that in your family or among your peers at school. Maybe you work with someone like that. Linn Taylor is the author of the best-selling book about moody bosses. The book's title says it all. It's called Tame Your TOT (T-O-T), Terrible Office Tyrant: How to Manage Childish Boss Behavior and Thrive in Your Job.

She writes of how it can be disconcerting to start the morning with a cheery, angelic boss, only to find that by 4:00 PM he has morphed into the creature from the Black Lagoon. Well, I'm grateful that I've not had to experience that kind of thing myself, but maybe that strikes a chord for you. I'm hoping that none of the church staff are looking at their shoes right now, avoiding eye contact. But the truth is this, the point is this: the immutability of God, the unchangeableness of God, means that we know how He will be from day to day, how He will interact with us and treat us.

He never has bad days. He never wakes up on the wrong side of the bed. As His people, we're not subject to divine whims and divine mood swings. He will treat us today as He has always treated His people. That's the point, actually, that the writer to the Hebrews is making in chapter 13, in that verse I quoted there. He begins the discussion in verse 7 by encouraging the readers to imitate their leaders in the way that they walked with the Lord. He says, "Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith."

See how it went for these leaders in following Jesus and trusting Jesus? It went well, didn't it? They finished strong. And so theirs is a good model to follow. And if it went well for them following Jesus, trusting Jesus, it'll go well for you too, if you follow Jesus and trust Jesus. That's the implication. And now comes the basis for that claim, verse 8: "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." Jesus Christ never changes. He will behave toward you as He did toward the believers who have gone before in days gone by. He will be gracious and He will be kind and He will be forgiving. He will bear with you, He will persevere with you, He will sustain you. He will be all the things to you that He always has been to His people.

Sometimes you can have that frustrating experience of taking a recommendation from someone: a recommendation of a restaurant to try, or a hotel to stay in, or a car to buy, a school to attend, a company maybe to work for. Your friend had a fabulous experience five years ago, ten years ago. But you try the same thing today, and it is a disaster. Why is that? How can that be? Well, that happens because the company has changed. The organization has gone downhill. Things have deteriorated. It's not what it once was.

In his great song recorded in Deuteronomy 32, Moses declares this about the Lord: "I will proclaim the name of the Lord. Oh, praise the greatness of our God! He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he." God is the Rock. He is the one upon whom we can depend. Now, big rocks, they don't tend to move. They don't tend to change very much from year to year. And the image of the rock, it points us to the stability and the trustworthiness of our unchanging God. In a world such as this one, how much we need to know the God who does not change, the one upon whom we can rely.

It may be you're actually here this morning because you are looking for some kind of stability in a time of chaos or a time of disappointment, a time of grief, a time of overwhelming change. Maybe you're not a committed Christian at all, but you've come here today because you are in search of something, something stable, something dependable, something you can rely upon in a changeable and a confusing world. Well, this is the God in whom we trust, and He offers us security and stability. He offers us unchanging love, steadfast love, if we will come to Him through Jesus Christ.

Steve Hiller: You're listening to Encounter the Truth with Jonathan Griffiths, and part of a message called "The Unchanging God." Now, we have to pause the message right here, but we're going to get back to this message in just a moment. If you're new to the program, glad that you've tuned in today. If you ever miss a broadcast, I want you to know you can always come and listen at our website. You can stream an MP3 for free on your computer or mobile device, or you can just download it and listen whenever it's convenient for you. Our website address is encounterthetruth.org. Also a great place to go if you just want to find out more about Jonathan and this ministry. Again, it's encounterthetruth.org. Back to the message. Here is Jonathan.

Jonathan Griffiths: God's character is unchanging. Next, God's standards are unchanging. Listen to what one pastor writes about standards of godliness among Christians in his particular context. I have had a deep conviction for many years that practical holiness and entire self-consecration to God are not sufficiently attended to by modern Christians. Politics or controversy or party spirit or worldliness have eaten out the heart of lively piety in too many of us. The subject of personal godliness has fallen sadly into the background. The standard of living has become painfully low in many quarters. The immense importance of adorning the doctrine of God our Savior and making it lovely and beautiful by our daily habits and tempers has been far too much overlooked.

Well, that was Bishop J.C. Ryle in the introduction to his book Holiness, published in 1879. Ryle was very concerned that Victorian Christians had lost a biblical vision for holiness, had let go of the standards of God's Word in their day. Reflecting on those comments, I often wonder to myself what Ryle might make of us today were he to be transported here and just observe our lives as a fly on the wall. I wonder what would strike him about our standards of holiness in our age. No doubt we would look on some of the exhortations that Ryle sets out actually in his book. We'd look on them as antiquated or perhaps even just a little bit strange. It's quite common for one generation of Christians to look on the habits and standards and rules of a former and to revise them or to set them aside. Ryle saw that happening in his day, and we no doubt see it in ours.

But we need to be careful, don't we, in that process of revision? The fact that God is an unchanging God, it means that His standards are unchanging, too. What the immutable God says is right in one age is right in every age, and what the immutable God says is wrong in one age is wrong in every age. In Psalm 119 and verse 89, the Psalmist writes: "Your word, O Lord, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens. Your faithfulness continues through all generations; you established the earth, and it endures. Your laws endure to this day, for all things serve you."

The word of the eternal God is unchanging. His laws endure. Now, of course, as we say that, we need to just note here in the margin that there are certain practices in the Old Testament Scriptures that are tied to the temple and so on: dietary laws, hygiene laws, that are in place for a time to point forward to Christ but are fulfilled and are set aside with the arrival of the Lord Jesus. That's a different matter. But the moral law of God, it doesn't change. The Ten Commandments, they're not up for revision or renegotiation every few years. And that's a very important fact for us to consider and reflect upon. It's important for us because the winds of change are blowing so strongly in our culture, as I guess they always are. And we are more shaped by our context, our cultural context, than we ever know or realize.

We all participate in institutions, and we imbibe media, and we rub shoulders with people all the time. And of course, we want to do those things. We don't want to live in a bubble of our own subculture in some evangelical commune. But where we are imbibing the values of the world, we need to sit up and take note. We need to be considering all the time where are we abandoning the unchanging standards of the Word of God? For us living within the culture as we do, it's sometimes hard to see and to identify where perhaps we have shifted without even noticing it. We can't always see it, but there are some dramatic ways in which a shift is happening.

I think we all know that attitudes on sexuality, for instance, are shifting very, very rapidly in our day and among Christians amidst immense pressure from the culture and from government as well. Recent studies in the United States have highlighted the rapid shift in attitudes in this area taking place among those who identify as evangelical Christians. The Pew Center has found that while 26% of evangelicals born before 1964—so for that cohort, 26%—would favor gay marriage. Now, even that is very surprising, but this is more surprising. For those born after 1964, 47% of those who self-identify as evangelicals would favor gay marriage. Now, that is a massive and a very rapid shift in cultural and moral attitudes. It's a very noticeable shift on a significant and hot-button issue.

But where else are you and I shifting without even necessarily being aware of it? What about our attitudes to wealth and to generosity, to work and integrity and honesty, to justice and compassion? Where have you and I just accommodated ourselves to the culture or simply to our own sinful desires, forgetting the culture altogether? Where have we done so without even noticing it or realizing it? I think it's a very searching question to consider personally. If the sexuality debate is one massive moral frontier where the culture is pushing us very, very hard, another area is the whole question of the sanctity of life.

The Bible teaches us so clearly, doesn't it, that human beings, whatever their age, whatever their health condition, whatever their quality of life, whether in the womb at the beginning of life or in palliative care at the end of life, each human being is made in the image of God. What a thought! Each human being is made in the image of the Creator and endowed with dignity and with worth. Each one of us is endowed with such worth, each human being, that God would send His Son to die for our redemption. How precious is a human life. And that tells us that human beings are precious and valuable and worthy of the utmost protection at every stage of life. That's what the Scriptures teach us. That's what the Scriptures say.

Now, that's a fixed point in the Word of God. That is an unchanging thing. It is a fundamental principle. It's not up for renegotiation. It's not up for revision. And what do we say to these things? How are we to respond to the pressure? Well, it's not an easy thing to navigate, but our answer, it is grounded in the conviction of the Psalmist: "Your word, O Lord, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens. Your laws endure to this day." See, our God is immutable. His standards are unchanging. Next, our God is immutable, and so His purposes are unchanging.

Human planning is always subject to change. Here in our church family, we have an unusually large number of folks who serve in government, in the civil service and so on. And if you have been around government departments long enough, you know something of changed plans and changed policies, changed priorities, changed strategies. One government may have a grand plan for health or defense or education or something else, and you work away at it in line with government policy for a few years. Then another government comes in, and the priorities are completely reversed, the project is canceled, and something new is dreamed up. It happens all the time. It's the beauty of democracy. It's just the way things work. Different leaders have different views, circumstances change, the experts revise their advice.

But how different it is with the God of the universe. When it comes to His plans and His purposes for the world and the church, nothing ever changes with Him. There are a number of statements in the Scriptures that give us very deep insight into God's big-picture plan for the universe. And many of those are actually found in the writings of the Apostle Paul. One such statement is found in Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 22, where Paul says that God placed all things under His feet, that is, under Jesus's feet, and appointed Him to be head over everything for the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way. What's Paul saying there? He's saying that God's purpose has always been to exalt Christ and make Him head over all things.

Steve Hiller: You're listening to Encounter the Truth with Jonathan Griffiths, and part of a message called "The Unchanging God." We have to pause here, but we'll continue this message on our next broadcast. So I hope you'll make it a point to tune in. If you ever miss a program, come and listen online. Our website is encounterthetruth.org.

Encounter the Truth is able to be on this station each day because of your financial generosity. And as you give a gift of any amount this month, we want to say thank you by sending you a copy of Jonathan's new book called Wisdom and Knowledge. And Jonathan, when you sat down to write this book on Solomon, did you have a person in mind? Who did you write the book for?

Jonathan Griffiths: Well, Steve, I think three types of people and they're overlapping. I wrote this for the leader or the one who wants to grow as a leader because I think Solomon is a fascinating study in leadership. I wrote this for the believer because I think Solomon is a fascinating model of someone who knows the Lord and walks with the Lord, receives grace from the Lord, but also stumbles in sin. And there are lessons there for every believer. And then finally, I wrote this for the Bible teacher because this portion of Scripture in 1 Kings is a portion of Scripture that many people shy away from teaching and preaching. But there is so much here, and my hope is that this book will be a great help to those leading Bible studies and giving sermon series in this portion of the Word of God.

Steve Hiller: Well, we'd love to send you a copy of this book, Wisdom and Knowledge, as our way of saying thank you for your financial support this month. You can give online at encounterthetruth.org or when you call 1-833-99TRUTH. That's 1-833-998-7884 or encounterthetruth.org. You can also write us at Encounter the Truth, 2176 Prince of Wales Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, K2E 0A1. Or in the US at Encounter the Truth, 215 North Arlington Heights Road, Number 102, Arlington Heights, Illinois, 60004. For Jonathan Griffiths and our producer Mark Beattie, I'm Steve Hiller. Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join us next time.