The Immutability of God

Tonight we're on lesson number seven, and I want to thank you for sticking through, to make it through seven weeks. We're halfway. This is a 15-week study. So kudos to you for sticking through this. I know it's difficult to be two, three, four lessons into anything, but to be seven weeks in, y'all are doing wonderful. So thank you so much. Tonight we're studying what we call the immutability of God. And now that is not a word that we use very often, right? However, it is something that is in culture and we do use from time to time. Over the last 10, 15 years you've seen any superhero movie, you've probably found someone that's a mutant in one of those movies. Always talk about Spider-Man. He's a high school kid who gets bit by a radioactive spider. And what happens to Peter Parker? He changes. He mutates. He all of a sudden can jump really high and run really fast and shoot webs and all that. That simply means that God doesn't change. We change. We mutate, if you will. Every single one of us changes, but our God never changes. So we're going to look at our first Bible point tonight.

God's nature, will, and ways are exempt from all change. God's nature, which is another way of saying His attributes, His nature, His will and ways are exempt from all change.

As humans, everything that we come into contact with in this world changes, right? You look in the mirror, and what do you notice every day? It changes, right? We get older. The hair from the top of my head has migrated down to my face over the years, right? That's part of getting older. I have gray all over now, right? We age. Every single one of us does. That's part of life. It's true not just with ourselves, but it's true when you go outside. You'll see, even on our church property here, you'll see limbs that are dropping leaves, right? Limbs that fall off the tree. That's just part of change. We see it in our children, right? We wish that they would stay young because we enjoy them so much. But if you're like me, your children are grown and out of the household, and you miss them, right? You miss those days when you could take them for a stroll and push them in the swing. But that's part of life. Everything about our existence is changing. But not God. He's exempt from all change in His nature, in His will, and in His ways. Look at Malachi 3:6.

God says, "For I am Yahweh, I am the Lord, and I do not change. Therefore, you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob." He's actually telling them it's a good thing He doesn't change because God is long-suffering. God is patient. And if He were to change, He might consume them because He was dealing with a rebellious Israel at this point. And we'll read a little bit more about it from the same passage when we get to point five. But God declares explicitly, "I do not change." Psalm 102, verses 25 and 27 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, they all 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."

Astronomers can look up into the stars and they can see what they believe are stars that have died or that are dying, right? God not only brings things into existence, but He also takes things out of existence, right? We've seen that here on earth. We've seen species go extinct, right? We've seen animals, even we all have beloved pets, right? It breaks our heart when a beloved family pet dies because they kind of become part of the family. Everything that God makes here, because it's finite, because it's limited, it has an end. And so do we, but praise God He doesn't. He never changes. The application is this: we can securely trust in God in all His ways. There is no fickleness in God. We can securely trust in God in all His ways. There is no fickleness in God. Now fickleness is not a word we use very often, but basically it means someone who's flaky, who's not dependable, right? Who's not trustworthy. It's a person who changes, who's all over the place. Have you ever heard in sports of a fair weather fan?

They only root for the team when the team's doing good, right? And then they pull out their pennants and their hats and their shirts and they're proud to be a Dolphin fan because the Dolphins are taking off and starting to look good. But in other years they want nothing to do with them, right?

Have you ever heard of a fair weather friend?

Yeah, a fair weather friend is one who is there when the money's rolling good, when you're having a party, when all is well, when your health is there and you can do good things for them and they can be a part of your life. But when your health begins to fade, they don't call you anymore, right? When your money runs out, they disappear. When moving day comes, they can't be found. That's how you find out who loves you is on moving day, right?

That's a fair weather friend, someone who only comes when it's good and then for their convenience. It reminds us of the prodigal son. Remember what happened to him when he ran out of his inheritance? Where did all of his friends go? Did they help him? Not a bit. They sure enjoyed spending his money and spending his wealth, but when he was broke, when he had nothing, they were nowhere to be found. But God is always faithful to His people, right? He is no fair weather friend. God is true in His covenant faithfulness to us. He never forsakes us. He never leaves us. Not when we're young. Not when we're old. Not when we're rich. Not when we're poor. No matter what happens in our life, no matter what befalls us, God is faithful because there's no fickleness in God. Hebrews 13:8 says, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." The same Savior who died on the cross for you. He loves you just as much as He did the day that you came to faith in Christ. The day that you turned to Him and said, "Save me. Forgive me of my sins." And you felt His love and you felt His forgiveness and you had new life. He loved you just as much then as He did today. Maybe that's been years ago. Some of us, maybe 20 or 30, 40 years or longer ago when we came to Christ. And we think, "Well, you know, I don't really feel that kind of love today."

God still loves you just as much then as He does today. And He's going to love you just as much tomorrow as He does today. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Flip over on the back of your sheet. Psalm 103:17 says, "But the mercy, which is God's hesed, His covenant faithfulness, the mercy of Yahweh is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him and His righteousness to children's children." You go on and you read there, it says, "To those who keep His covenant, to those who trust in Him." God's faithfulness never fails. He's never going to stop loving His bride. He's never going to stop loving His sons and His daughters, right? Because that's who He is. Unchanging God.

Bible point number two: God can't change because He's totally perfect.

God can't change because He's totally perfect. He can't change to better or worse.

When you were in grade school, did you ever get a mark on one of your papers? Maybe it was on your report card, and a teacher said, "David has so much potential."

That's kind of a backhanded compliment, right? It's saying he could be doing much better than he is right now, right? God has no untapped potential. He's already perfect, right? There's no expansion possible for God. He's already there. There's no perfection yet to be reached for God. In the same way, there's no contraction with God. There's no deterioration with God. There's no pulling back with God's character because He is absolutely perfect. For Him to change, He would have to go from good to better or from good to worse. And that's not possible because He's absolutely perfect in all of His ways. Infinitely perfect.

Look at James chapter 1, verse 17. It says, "Every good and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning."

God never varies, and that's a good thing, right? And God has no shadow side, no deterioration, no dark side. It's all good because that's who He is, the infinitely perfect God. The application is this: we must strive to be imitators of God.

God doesn't change because He's perfect. We do change, right? But we should strive to be perfect as God is perfect, right? To be holy as God is holy. That should be our aim: to emulate the character of Christ, to look at His standard and to conform our life to His infinite perfections.

Matthew 5, verse 48 says, "Therefore, you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect." So we do change, and that change that we should be making should be to be getting better, right? To be conforming more and more every day into the image of Christ. So that should be our goal. We should embrace change, not change for the worse, but change towards Christ's likeness, to be perfect as He is perfect. Flip over on the back. Reference number two on the back is Deuteronomy 32:4 talking about Yahweh, our God: "He is the rock. His work is perfect. For all of His ways are justice. A God of truth without injustice. Righteous and upright is He." Shouldn't that be our goal too? To be perfect, for all of our ways to be just, all of our ways to be true without injustice, to be righteous and upright as God is. Right?

Bible point number three.

God's immutability is consistent with constant activity and perfect freedom.

God's immutability is consistent with constant activity and perfect freedom. The fact that God doesn't change does not mean that God is immobile, that God is frozen, that He's like one of the idols that we read and talked about in week two when we talked about the true and living God, who have to be carried around, who have to be propped up because they have no life in them. God, on the other hand, is the opposite. His immutability is perfectly compatible with constant activity. It is in God's very nature to be, and it is in His very nature to act. If God wasn't upholding us, we wouldn't be here. We learned about that last week, that God is the ground of all being. And apart from His being, there would be none of us because in Him we live and move and have our being. Exactly right. Look at John chapter 5, verses 16 through 17. Jesus says, "For this reason the Jews" — or this is John saying — "For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus and sought to kill Him because He had done these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, 'My Father has been working until now and I have been working.'" Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath and the Jews were in an uproar over that. They thought He was violating the Sabbath command, right? And what does He tell them? He says, "My Father has been working until now and I have been working." From the very beginning in creation, all three persons of the Godhead were at work, right? God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit. All at work in creation, in nature. And all three are constantly at work in redemption, are they not? In salvation. Christ has perfectly obeyed the Father on the cross and the Holy Spirit is at work convicting hearts, right? Turning people. The principle of all movement towards God is the Holy Spirit convicting people of sin and unrighteousness and of holiness. So God is constantly at work. The fact that He doesn't change doesn't mean that He is in a straitjacket, that He can't work. He's always working on our behalf and for the good of His creation. Not only is it consistent with constant activity, but it's consistent with perfect freedom in God.

Psalm 135:6 says, "Whatever Yahweh, whatever the Lord pleases, He does. Whatever He pleases, in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all the deep places." So in heaven up above, on the earth below, in the seas and deep places, everywhere we can imagine as humans, God does exactly what He pleases. Wouldn't it be nice if we could do whatever we please?

Don't wish for that.

You'd probably get yourself into trouble, right? Go wherever you want to go and do whatever you want to do. But God does everything according to His holy nature, right? And He does exactly what He pleases. So He has constant activity and perfect freedom, which is consistent with who He is. He is the sovereign God Almighty. The application is this: we can trust that God is always at work. We can trust that God is always at work. When I was a boy, I'd get out of school and I'd go work at the automotive shop there in town. This started when I was 13 and I'd work in the afternoons and I'd work on the weekends. I was a gopher. I'd help the mechanics. I learned a lot. I'd fix tires, go pick up parts, whatever they needed me to do.

The mechanics, though, they knew that when the boss is away, that it's time to play. And so they'd be playing cards and goofing off when the boss wasn't there. But my boss, he had a giant Ford diesel truck and you could hear that thing coming from blocks away. You'd hear it rumbling along. And all of a sudden these grown men would jump and they would get to working, right? Because the boss was there. And what a horrible thing that is, for a boss to find that your employees aren't working, right? That they're slacking off. Well, God is always working. He never stops working for us. Lamentations 3:22 through 23 says, "Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed because His compassions fail not." God is always extending His mercies to us. He's always upholding us. He's always forgiving us, right? Birds fly and Christians forgive because God forgives, right? His nature is to forgive. It says, "For His compassions fail not, they are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness." Praise God that He's always at work, that His compassions are new every morning. As we sing in the hymn, "Great is thy faithfulness, O Lord my Father." Amen.

Colossians 1:28 through 29 talks about God's work. And it's not just what God does for us, it's what God does in us, in and through His church. This is him, speaking of Christ — him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. Our work is the work of the Father, right? He wants us to be conformed to His image, so as a church, what do we work to do but to present every man, every boy, every girl, complete and perfect in Christ Jesus? He says, "To this end I also labor" — Paul's saying — "I'm laboring to this end, striving according to His working, which works in me mightily." God empowers the church to do His will. He's always working among us in the church. You may not even realize it, but sometimes you feel the need to pray for someone. That's God working in your heart to pray for someone. Maybe God puts it in your mind to send someone an encouraging text, to get a text from your pastor that says, "Praying for you." That makes your day when you hear that, right? To know that someone is thinking about me, to know that someone loves me, right? That is God working in and through us. He's constantly working, not just toward us, but in and through His congregation, right?

Flip over on the back. Number three, reference number three on the back, Psalm 68:19, "Blessed be the Lord, who daily loads us with benefits." The God of our salvation — selah, pause and think about that. God daily loads you with benefits. He doesn't miserly dispense them. He pours out His Spirit without measure, does He not? And so He daily loads His people with His benefits.

Bible point number four: God's immutability includes His word, His plans, and His salvation.

God's immutability, His unchangingness, includes His word, His plans, and His salvation.

Let's first look at God's word. Psalm 119, which is a beautiful Psalm. As you know, it's the longest Psalm. It's longer than actually 30 different books in the Bible. One Psalm, right?

Psalm 119:89 says, "Forever, O Lord, your word is settled in heaven."

Is our word settled?

No, right? We often say one thing, but we do another. Even when we have the best intentions, right? We make a promise. We say, "I'll be home by six o'clock," but something comes up and we're not able to do it. Or, "I'm going to take you here on a certain day," and then your car breaks down, or a client calls and you've got work to do. Our word isn't settled, but God's word is forever settled in heaven, meaning that it is perfect. His word does not change. Flip over on the back. Number four, the first Bible verse there is Matthew 5:18.

Jesus says, "For surely I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled." Jesus here is saying that heaven is going to pass away, the earth is one day going to be dissolved, right? He says not one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till it's all fulfilled. A jot is the tenth letter in the Hebrew alphabet, it's yod, it's the smallest letter, and it looks like an apostrophe. It's very seemingly insignificant. Yet not the smallest letter in God's alphabet is going to fade from existence. And then He says, "Not one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled." A tittle is not even a letter, but it's a mark. Think of the English language. Think of the capital letter R. Capital R has a straight line, then a curve, right? Then it's got this diagonal line going down. That would be kind of like a tittle. If that tittle was gone from the R, what letter would that look like? The letter P, right? So it's significant because it can change the meaning of a word, especially in a language where there are no written vowels. It can make a big difference. But God's saying not even the tiniest little mark on a word will pass away because His word is perfect. It's settled forever in heaven. We can trust God's promises; they never fail. We can take them to the bank, right?

Not only does God's immutability mean that His word will never change, but it also means that His plans never change. Turn back on the front page, there under number four, Psalm 33:11, "The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart to all generations."

God's plans are perfect. He has no contingency plan. We as humans, whether it's in our own personal life or whether it's in our business or in our government, we come up with plan A, plan B, plan C, plan D, right? In case plan A doesn't work out. God has no plan B. He has no plan C. He calls the things that are not as though they existed. He calls the end from the beginning.

Exactly right. He never has an oops. God's plans are perfect. Flip over on the back. Under number four, Isaiah 14:24 says, "The Lord of hosts has sworn, saying, 'Surely as I have thought, so it shall come to pass, and as I have purposed, so it shall stand.'" In fact, if you read the next couple of verses past that, let me read to you. Verse 26 says, "This is the purpose that is purposed against the whole earth, and this is the hand stretched out over all the nations," talking about His judgment on Assyria. He says, "For the Lord of hosts has purposed it, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?" It's a rhetorical question in which the only answer is no one. No one can stop God's plans. His plans are perfect. They're immutable. And not only is His word immutable, not only are His plans immutable, but so is His salvation.

Look on the front page, Philippians chapter 1, verse 6. Paul says, "Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ." God starts, He finishes. We all know and love John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but has everlasting life." That's in the present tense. That means if you believe in Christ, it means literally you have taken hold of eternity. Because you are united with Christ the very minute that you are regenerated, the very minute that you place your faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit comes and seals you as His own.

Now, if you could lose that, how could you ever have been said to have eternal life? That's not eternal life. That's like five-minute life, right? Ten-day life, one-year life, and then I fell away. Not at all. Whoever believes on Christ has, possesses, holds eternal life, and that is forever. Flip over on the back. John chapter 10, verses 27 through 30, Jesus says, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one." There is no more secure place to be than in the hand of God, right? No one can snatch you out of His hand. You can't snatch yourself out of God's hand, right? So God's plans are immutable, His salvation is immutable, and His word is immutable. His promises are sure.

Application for number four: trust in God, for He alone is our rock.

"Trust in God, for He alone is our rock." Psalm 18:31 says, "For who is God except the Lord? And who is a rock except our God?" When you hear the name rock, what does that bring up? That brings up something that is secure. Something that lasts, right? If you go outside, as I mentioned, you'll see leaves that will turn brown and they'll go away. But if you see a rock outside, chances are it's going to be there tomorrow. Chances are that rock's going to be there in a hundred years too, right? It's solid. It doesn't change. It's unmovable. That is who our Lord is, right?

So our God is immutable, and He is the rock that we put our trust in.

Number five: scripture sometimes speaks of God as changing His mind, His ways, or emotions. This is simply a way of relating God's unchanging character to a change in man's heart towards God. Scripture sometimes speaks of God changing His mind, ways, or emotions. This is simply a way of relating God's unchanging character to a change in man's heart towards God.

Because God is infinite, He condescends to us. We studied this two weeks ago when we talked about the infinity of God, right? The finite — us, the limited, the creature — cannot contain the infinite. So God speaks to us through the language of accommodation, right? Oftentimes God is described as having eyes and ears and arms. But we know from week one that God is a spiritual being and He doesn't have a body like men. But God accommodates us. He speaks to us as if He's a man, so we can grasp Him. We can grasp His character. We can grasp His nature, right? And sometimes God speaks as if He's changing His mind, or changing His ways, or changing His emotions for us to understand Him. But God doesn't change, not in His mind, not His ways, or His disposition, or His emotions. He never changes, okay?

Theologians like to use a phrase. They say that the same sun that melts the wax hardens the clay.

The same sun that melts the wax hardens the clay. I grew up in Texas, and you get out to West Texas and you head out to New Mexico and you see a lot of buildings that are made out of adobe. And what is adobe, basically? It's clay, right? And it's clay that's baked in the sun. Very similar to what ancient Israelites did when they were enslaved in Egypt, right? If you take clay and you mix it right and you bake it in the sun, it'll become very solid, very rock-like, so that you can build a structure and live in it. But the same sun that hardens the clay also melts the wax. Did the sun change?

No. There's no change in that bright star that we call the sun, but the change is in the object that is shined upon.

If a wicked person who's in rebellion against God, who has never bowed the knee, who has never repented, he or she is under the wrath of God, the Bible tells us. God opposes them, right?

But the minute that they repent, the minute that they turn from sin and they turn to Christ, they're converted, they're regenerated, they're made new. Are they still under the wrath of God? No. "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." They now are under the full love and favor of God, right? Because they are now found to be in Christ. Did God change? No. He always resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. He always punishes the wicked and upholds the upright, right? God didn't change, but they changed, right? So God doesn't change, not in His mind, not in His will or ways, and not in His emotions.

Let's look at Genesis 6 as an example of this accommodating language that helps us understand God. It says in Genesis 6:6, "And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart." If you go ahead and you read verse 7 after that, it says, "So the Lord said, 'I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.'"

It sounds there as if God is changing His mind, changing His ways, changing His emotions. He's feeling sorry, right? He says, "I'm grieved. I'm now going to destroy this creation that I have made." It sounds like an oops, right? That God's maybe going to plan B, as if this is something He hasn't thought about. That's not true at all. That's the way that God accommodates. We can understand that sin grieves God, right? That He resists the proud, but yet Noah found favor because Noah was a righteous man with God. We have to take those passages that speak of God in accommodating language and do what we call the analogy of Scripture.

In the first heading of systematic theology, we talked about this in week one — it deals with bibliology, or what we would call epistemology, how we know truth, how we know about God through His general revelation and His special revelation. I mentioned that we have the Bible, which tells us Christ, the sum of His revelation. Pastor Casey has done an excellent job in teaching you on Wednesday nights different rules of interpretation. That's what the whole 3D Bible study is about, right? For example, you take a verse, not just separately, but you study it in its context. You look at the verses above it and the verses below it. You look at that chapter that it's in, the book that it's in. You look at the type of literature that it's in, right? Poetic passages or apocalyptic passages may have a lot of imagery that is interpreted quite differently from narrative or historical passages, right? So you take all that into account. You take the less clear passages that are kind of murky and you don't really know what they mean. Instead of building a whole doctrine around them, you take the more clear passages, the analogy of Scripture, let Scripture interpret Scripture, right?

And another principle you may not know of, but it's good to know, is that the narrative passages should always be interpreted in light of what we call the didactic passages — the passages that are asserting truth. God says He does not change. So when you read a narrative passage that seems like God changes, we have an apparent contradiction there, right? But we interpret the narrative in light of the didactic. And we see that, for example, here in Numbers 23:19, "For God is not a man that He should lie, nor a son of man that He should repent." The word "repent" there in Hebrew means to change, to change your mind and to change your course of action.

So it tells us that God doesn't change His mind. He doesn't change His course of action. It says, "He has said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?" Right? Great example of that. You can turn to the back.

Number five, we're going to look at 1 Samuel chapter 15. Leave there in the red folder. There is a handout. You can grab one of those. You can follow along. This is my brother. He's here in town from Texas. He's got to go back tomorrow, so he's here on business. So he wanted to come to Bible study tonight, and we're going to go grab dinner afterwards.

1 Samuel chapter 15 is a passage where it actually mixes the narrative and the didactic in the same passage. And it does so in relation to the fact that God doesn't change. Let's read this. This is concerning King Saul. Remember, King Saul had disobeyed God. He didn't kill the king of the Amalekites. He kept their spoils. He said, "It's because I'm going to use this to sacrifice to God." And Samuel tells him, "You're going to have the kingdom taken away from you, right? Because you've disobeyed God. You've not kept His word. You've not obeyed Him." So let's look at this. "Now the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying, 'I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.' And it grieved Samuel, and he cried out to the Lord all night." So you see God expressing regret.

"But Samuel said to Saul, 'I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.'" Change of action, right? "And as Samuel turned to go away, Saul seized the edge of the robe of Samuel and it tore. So Samuel said to him, 'The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today, and has given it to a neighbor of yours who is better than you. And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor relent.'" That's the same word for repenting. God does not change either His actions or His mind. "For He is not a man that He should relent, that He should change His actions or change His mind. Then Samuel went to Ramah, and Saul went to the house of Gibeah of Saul. And Samuel went no more to see Saul until the day of his death. Nevertheless, Samuel mourned for Saul, and the Lord regretted that He had made Saul king over Israel." So God is expressing His disdain at Saul's rebellion, right? Did God know that Saul was going to do this from the very beginning? Exactly, right? God is omniscient. He knows all things. There are no surprises to God.

However, the change wasn't in God; the change was in Saul, right? Saul had been obedient up until this point, but now he became disobedient. So God cannot reward wickedness, right? He has to instead punish wickedness, right? Works both ways. When the righteous turn toward sin, God is going to discipline them, right? Whom the Father loves, He chastens, right? And it works the other way. When the wicked repent of their sins, God is going to accept them because they have now embraced Christ Jesus, our Lord, okay?

The application is this: repent and always be repenting. As humans, we need to be changing and always changing our minds and our course of actions to fidelity to Christ, right? Every day is a fresh day. That's why Christ told us to pray, "Forgive us of our debts as we forgive our debtors." We need to be praying that every day. Repent and always be repenting is the application for number five. Malachi 3:6 through 7. We read verse 6 earlier; here's verses 6 and 7. "For I am the Lord, I do not change. Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob. Yet from the days of your fathers, you have gone away from my ordinances and have not kept them. Return to me and I will return to you," says the Lord of Hosts. Again, God doesn't change, but we change, right?

Number six, last point. God's immutability brings consolation to all His people, but affliction to all of His enemies.

God's immutability brings consolation to all of His people, but affliction to all of His enemies. The fact that God doesn't change is for the Christian one of our greatest comforts, right?

Why do we love dogs?

They're loyal, right? They're always happy to see you, right? They wag their tails. God's disposition towards you never changes.

God, because you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ, God always loves you. That's why the Scripture says, "Nothing shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus." God cannot love you more than He loves you right now as Christians, because He loves you with a perfect love. He loves you with an infinite love. He loves you with the exact same love that He pours out on His Son, and the same pleasure that He has in His Son, Jesus Christ, He has in you, dear brother and dear sister. That is Christ's perfect love for us. It doesn't change.

So it should bring us all great consolation — to His people, but affliction to His enemies.

Because the wrath of God abides on the wicked, right?

Those who are apart from Christ, they may think they've gotten away with something. They may think that, "Hey, 10 years ago I robbed a bank. But I've kind of turned my life around. I'm not in the bank-robbing anymore." Ten years ago I committed a murder. I lied. I did this. I did that. But I think God's anger has kind of cooled off and it's okay. So on the day of judgment, you know, we'll be buds. God will wink at me and say, "It's okay. You did more good later in life than you did bad earlier in life, right?"

No. On the day of judgment, God doesn't change. He's always just, right? And His ways are perfect. Zephaniah 3:5 says, "The Lord is righteous in her midst. He will do no unrighteousness. Every morning He brings justice to light. He never fails, but the unjust know no shame." The unjust keep sinning, even though God's justice never fails. You cannot escape the long arm of the Lord, right? His justice never fails. He's always executing it.

The application is this: trust in God's unchanging promises. Trust in God's unchanging promises. Revelation 20:12 through 15 says, "And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works by the things which were written in the books. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire."

Praise God that those of us who have trusted in Christ Jesus are not judged by our works, but we're judged by the works of Christ. And Christ's works are perfect. They completely satisfy the Father. And there is no disappointment in God in us, because we are written in the Book of Life. Right? Flip over on the back to close out. Luke 16 is a fearful parable that Jesus tells.

"There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously. But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores." The dogs were the only ones compassionate to Lazarus, right? "So it was when the beggar died, he was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and he saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom. Then he cried and said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.'" He figured he could command this beggar to come bring him relief, right? "But Abraham said, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things. But now he is comforted and you are tormented. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.'"

"Then he said, 'I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.' Abraham said to him, 'They have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them.' And he said, 'No, father Abraham. If one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.' But he said to him, 'If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.'"

Christ Jesus has risen from the dead, and His gospel promise is as true today as it was two thousand years ago. All who believe in Him have everlasting life. Amen?