We'll turn to the book of Malachi chapter number three for our reading, and then we'll go to Hebrews chapter 13. So we have two Bible readings today, one in the Old and the other in the New Testament. First of all, Malachi, the last book of the Bible, Malachi chapter three, and we'll read from the opening verses of both of these chapters, then we'll go to Hebrews chapter 13. Malachi chapter three, verse number one. Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant whom ye delight in. Behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fuller's soap. And he shall sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver, He shall purify the sons of Levi and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old and as in former years. And I will come near to you to judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swears, and against those that oppress the harling in his wages, the widow in the fatherless, and to turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts, for I am the Lord, I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. And then Hebrews chapter 13 verse 1, let brotherly love continue, be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember them that are in bonds as bind with them, and them which suffer adversity as being yourselves also in the body. Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled, but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. Let your conversation be without covetousness. Be content with such things as ye have, for he has said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. So as we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God, whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever. Amen. We'll end our reading at that very familiar verse. Let's unite in prayer. Our loving Father, we thank thee for thy word. We thank thee for its truth. We come, dear God, to understand the scriptures today. We pray that thou wilt open our understanding. We pray for the spirit to illuminate, O God, our understanding, and to bring light where there is darkness, and give us, O God, a greater grasp of who our God actually is. We pray that our hearts might be thrilled as we consider him, and Lord, that we might further follow him closely as a result of what we hear today. May there be profit to every heart, and so mix the word with faith. God, we realize that if it be not mixed with faith, then it brings no profit to the soul. Will God then give us, Father, the gift of faith today? Lord, cause thy word to reside within our hearts, and then help us to live out in light, our lives in light, of that which we will be taught of and what we'll learn today. We'll answer prayer. Fill this preacher with the spirit of God. We pray this in Jesus' precious and holy name. Amen. Everything in this world is in a state of flux. The noun flux really describes something that is constantly changing. If your likes and your dislikes, your attitudes, your dreams, your ambitions, even your friendships are changing all the time, your life is described as being in a state of flux. Someone comes home after a long period of absence, maybe they've immigrated to another land. That person often is found remarking how much things have changed within the community since they were last at home. They go into the town and they would find old shops closed down while others have opened in their place. People that they once met and once conversed with on the street are no longer to be found within the community. Houses have been built on land that was once green fields. There's always change. Even whenever I return to my own home church, I find that the makeup of even that congregation has changed from what I once knew it. Babies have become children, children have become teenagers, and everyone just looks that little bit older. Some are frailer, and certainly others are much greyer. These variations are but reminders to us all that we live in a changing world and that time and tide wait for no man. I would be right in saying that this world is a changing world. Politically things change, In nature, things change. Physically, our bodies experience change. In work, we experience change. While the church of Jesus Christ is not immune from change either. The hymn writer captured the changing nature of this world when he penned the words, change and decay in all around I see. And yet the hymn writer went on to write, O thou who change us not, abide with me. In those latter words, Henry Francis Light, the hymn writer of the hymn, Abide With Me, brings to our attention the third and final incommunicable attribute of God, namely God's immutability. And it is upon that truth and upon that attribute that I want to dwell upon in the moments that we have before we meet around as God's people, the table of the Lord. And so today I want you to behold your immutable God. Behold your immutable God. The first thing that we want to consider today is immutability explained. Immutability explained. I'm sure you all know what a mutation is. You've probably heard of it at least. You hear of certain viruses mutating so that the antibiotics that once worked on them are no longer effective to fight off such viruses and their accompanying symptoms. Mutation is simply the process of a change, and so when we speak about something being immutable, we're speaking about something that has the inability to change, something that cannot or will not change. When we use this term immutability, referring to God, it is reminding us that God is not subject to change through time or through circumstances. He cannot be changed by time because of what we thought about last Lord's Day. He is eternal. He lives beyond the restraints, beyond the confinement of time. He lives in the present now or in the eternal today. That's what we thought about yesterday. And so time, that which oft times affects us within our own beings as we get older and frailer, cannot affect an eternal being. He cannot change because of time or by circumstances, because our God lives above circumstances. He is eternal. He is omnipresent. He is invariable in His nature, in His essence, in His character. God is absolutely without change. He is eternally the same, forever the same, never a change within our God. As I have done with other of these incommunicable attributes, I want to just give a number of what men have said about this attribute of immutability. One Reformed preacher who still lives today, he said, this God's immutability calls attention to his internal consistency. God never stops being God, he said. His character and his being is without decrease or augmentation or increase. Nothing can be added to or subtracted from His perfect being. God is now all that He ever was or ever shall be. A.W. Pink, he said, God is perpetually the same, subject to no change in His being, attributes or determinations. Therefore, God is compared to a rock. We find that within the scriptures that we read about God being the rock of our salvation. Well, that rock is a good illustration because the rock all times is immovable whenever the entire ocean surrounding it is continually in a fluctuating state. And even so, though all creatures are subject to change, Pink said, God is immutable because God has no beginning and no end. He can know no change. A. W. Tozer stated, to say that God is immutable is to say that he never differs from himself. The concept of a growing or of a developing God is not found in the scriptures. Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, when he spoke about God's immutability, he says this means that God is absolutely unchangeable. He can never be different in essence. He is always everlastingly the same. It is never possible that God should differ in any respect from what he always is and always has been. And so when we think about God's immutability, we come to appreciate that God cannot change in any of his attributes. For his immutability, his unchangeableness, it qualifies every other attribute that belongs to him. Therefore, being immutable God, God cannot change for the better and He cannot change for the worst. Any decrease or increase in any of His attributes would mean that He would no longer be God. And yet, immutable God, He knows no change. What He was, what He is, He will forever be. His power will never be exhausted. His being will know no decay. His goodness will never fail. His truth will always be the same. This lack of change in God, for the better or for the worse, was something that some Bible writers wrote about, Christian writers. One writer said this, God has neither evolved, grown, or improved. All that he is today, he has ever been and ever will be. He cannot change for the better, for he is already perfect. And being perfect, he cannot change for the worst. Charles Hodge said, God is absolutely unchangeable in his being and attributes. He cannot neither increase or decrease. He is subject to no process of development or self-evolution. His knowledge and power can never be greater or less. He can never be wiser or holier or more righteous or more merciful than he has been or ever must be. He is the same at all times and in all generations. And we're reminded of that in Psalm number 90, that God is the same. He is forever the same. So understand when you think of immutability, consider that God is unchangeable. There is no change within God. But we move on to a second point, and it is our final point for today. You may think, well, we're getting out early today. Well, the second point is not like the second point normally. The second point is usually brief and quick, but this second point is larger. And I trust that God will bless us as we think about it today. I want you to think about immutability revealed and applied. Immutability revealed to us and then applied to our lives. One of the constant rules that is set forth in scriptures in both Old and New Testament is the truth that the true and the living God is unchanging and unchangeable. He's unchangeable in his being. in his will and in his counsel. Now that truth is set forth in a number of passages and I'm only going to give you the references to them. I'm not going to read out the verses. But you'll find the truth that God is unchanging in passages such as Numbers 23, 19. Job 23, 13. Psalm 33, 11. Psalm 102, 27. Psalm 119, 89 through to 91. Proverbs 9, verse 21. Ecclesiastes 3, verse 14. Malachi 3, verse 6. 2 Timothy 2, verse 13. Hebrews 1, 12. Hebrews 13, 8 and James 1 verse 17. We have read a number of those passages. Let me point you to Malachi chapter 3. For I am the Lord, Jehovah, I am Jehovah, I change not. Now there it is. We don't need to have a degree, we don't need to have A-levels or GCSEs even to understand this truth. I am the Lord Jehovah and I change not. What do we find in that New Testament reading? In Hebrews chapter 13 and the verse number 8 we read these words, Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today and forever. He is the same. Now remember Malachi 3 verse 6, it's speaking of Jehovah. This claim of Christ here, that He is the same, means that He is Jehovah, He is God. It's one of the references whereby we can decipher and we can point men and women to with respect to the deity of Jesus Christ, and our young people learned about that on Friday night through our brother Andrew Simpson, as he spoke about the deity of Jesus Christ and how to prove it. And the Jehovah Witnesses will come to your door, and the Mormons will come to your door, and they will deny the deity of Jesus Christ. Well, there are two particular verses that you can take them to. And the Old Testament claims to be forever the same. Change is not. Jesus Christ is declared to not to be the same. And so we can bring the two together and remind ourselves that Jesus Christ is God. And we thank God for that. Well, we've thought about these verses. I've only given them to you, but I want you to think about a number of things in which God is the same. Can I say, first of all, and we have hinted at it, that God is the same in his perfections. The word perfection is but another name for attribute. I want you to consider just a number of those perfections and see what comfort and what challenge we can draw from them even on this Lord's day. Can I say, first of all, that God is unchangeable in his perfection of wisdom. in his perfection of wisdom. Wisdom is the application of knowledge. A man may have knowledge, but may not be wise. You've often heard of individuals who are very intelligent beings, but they're not very wise because they have failed to move that knowledge from head out into heart and into life. with wisdom applied to it. No wisdom is the application of knowledge. And when we think about God's knowledge, remember, we must remember that his knowledge is a full knowledge, he is infinite in knowledge, he is omniscient, and he is immutable in his knowledge. His knowledge does not change. God does not learn anything new. He's not like us when we go to school or to college or to university. Or even in life, the university of life, we often find ourselves saying, you often learn something new every day. That never happens with God. His knowledge knows no increase. He has a fullness of knowledge, and His knowledge does not change. And because His knowledge does not change, the outworking of that knowledge in His wisdom does not change either. Because God is infinite in His wisdom, therefore He can never do anything that is unwise. And because He is immutable in His wisdom, that means that He will never do anything that is wise. He's infinite in wisdom, so He cannot do anything wise. He is immutable in wisdom, therefore He will never do anything that is unwise. If until this juncture of human history, All of God's acts and all of God's deeds have been marked by wisdom. He is not, because he is forever the same, he is not going to start and act in an unwise manner from this day. As one preacher put it, he is unchanged in his wisdom. He knows as much now as ever, neither more nor less. He has the same consummate skill and the same infinite forecasting. My believer, Because God is the same in his wisdom, that means that all events, all events that happen in our lives are guided, controlled, and governed by God's unchanging wisdom. That may be, for some of us, hard to understand. That might be difficult for us, especially what we're presently going through in our lives. I don't know what you've come from this week in your home, from your family circumstances. And you may be questioning the wisdom of God, but we are reminded by this truth that God is unchanging, and He is unchanging within His perfections, and that means He is unchanging in His wisdom, that God has governed and planned and controlled everything by His immutable wisdom, everything that has happened in your life this week, and everything that will happen in the future. So child of God, God is still most wise when he brings us into life's valleys as when he takes us on to life's mountains. And God is still most wise when He brings us into days of poverty, as well as when He brought us into days of prosperity. And He is still most wise when His work in the church of Christ is enduring barrenness, as when God's work enjoyed days of blessing. God is still most wise. God who is immutably wise knows what he is bringing you and me through. And so, child of God, whatever it be today, trust in God's immutable, unchanging wisdom. Whatever life has for you in the days that lie ahead, he is most wise, and his wisdom does not change. Secondly, God is unchangeable in his perfection of power His perfection of power. As we consider what God has done in the past, we need not ask the question, is God a God of power? Has God not been a God of power in the past? Of course he has. Was he not mighty God when he spoke this world out of nothing? Was he not the omnipotent God when he piled the mountains high and skipped out the hollow places for the ocean and for the seas on creation's wake? Was he not all powerful when he parted the Red Sea and he brought down the walls of Jericho? Yes, thank God he was powerful then. And his power has changed in no way whatsoever. He still possesses immutable power. Immutable power. You know, brother, sister, today, maybe you're discouraged. Can I say that God's power has not changed with the passings the passing of years. The same power that awoke communities in the past in times of revival, that same power can change communities again today. The power that once threw over and overthrew the church's enemies in the past, that power has not changed, it has not diminished, it has not increased. The power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead has not changed, and the power that raised us, raised my soul, raised your soul from the grave of sin, thank God, has not been exhausted. So why, why then, believer, today are you in such despair? Why is there such fretting on your part? Why are you overly anxious to the state that you've got yourself? And we'll use an ulcerism stirred up into a tizzy. Why is it today that God's people believe that God's power has diminished? God's power has not changed. Omnipotent God is still omnipotent God. And I thank God for that. He's immutable in His power. His power never changes. And so, He giveth power to the faint, and to them that hath no strength or no might, He increaseth strength. He's able to give you power and to give you strength to live the Christian life, not to be living in defeat. not to be living in the shadows, not to be living in lies, valleys, experiences, but there's power, power to live for God, power to witness, power to overcome sin, draw from the power of God. You'll never diminish His power. It knows no decrease as we draw from Him. God is immutable in His power. Can I say in the third place that God is unchanging? in his perfection of justice. For those who defy God, for those who break his laws, for those who have no concern for his glory but those who live their lives as though God did not exist, the thought that God's justice is unchanging ought to cause the soul of everyone to tremble. With respect to sin and its eternal punishment, And I say that God will never alter his will. He'll never revoke his word. He'll never rescind his awful threatenings with respect to judgment against sin. God is holy, unchangeably so. God hates sin, eternally hates it, and thus the eternality of the justice against those who die in their sins, so God is immutable, unchanging in His justice. The same God that condemned the sinners of Sodom and Gomorrah will condemn your soul to the same hell, for you have defied the same God. And His justice cannot change. He has said in his word, the soul that sinneth, it shall die. God has decreed it. God has decreed it to be so. And if you live on in your sin, you'll die in your sin, and where God is and where Christ is, you'll never be. He has said it, He has decreed it, He has willed it, and He will never rescind any of His decree of will with respect to His justice. John Dick, he said this, the divine immutability, like the cloud which interposed or came between the Israelites and the Egyptian army, has a dark as well as a light side. And you'll remember that. Remember the children of Israel, they travel through the wilderness. They were given the light. That cloud, it appeared to them as a light. But on the other side, the Egyptian side, there was nothing but darkness. And this man, John Dickey, said, that's like God's unchangeableness, the divine immutability. There's a dark and there's a light side. And he goes on to explain. It ensures. God's immutability, his unchangeableness, it ensures the execution of his threatenings as well as the performance of his promises and destroys the hope which the guilty fondly cherish. that he will be all kind to his free and unerring creatures, and that they will be much more lightly dealt with than the declarations of his own word would lead us to expect. We oppose to these deceitful and presumptuous speculations the solemn truth that God is unchanging in veracity or truthfulness and purpose. He is unchanging in faithfulness and justice. You know the sinner, they think God's going to be kind to them. that God's going to deal with them in a more light manner than what is presented within the Scriptures of truth, but that cannot be so. If God was unchangeable in His justice towards you, well then, as the man of God, Leonard Ravenhill, said, he would have to apologize to the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah, because he displayed his justice against them for this sin, and he will With unchangeable character and nature, He will execute His justice in the same way against you, the sinner. Understand that, sinner. And let such an understanding drive you to the cross, cause you to flee from your sin, and exercise faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Sinner, can I say, for God to overlook your sin? to welcome you into heaven with no repentance or faith in Jesus Christ on your part would be a change and would mean a change in the execution of His divine justice, but never, never will that take place. Such cannot take place because God is unchanging in His justice. I say in The fourth place, that God is unchangeable in the perfection of his goodness. God is intrinsically good. The lawyer said to Christ, there is none good but one, that is God, and he was right in what he said. God is not only good in and of himself, he is also good towards his people. From him all good things proceed. James reminds us of that, that every good and perfect gift cometh down from above. Is it not true then at times when we look upon the frowning face of providence that we question the goodness of God? Yet God's goodness doesn't change. It is forever the same. For our good, he brings us into times of tribulation. He does so to deepen our trust in him. For our good, he takes the pruning knife to remove from us the fruitless branches so that he might promote new growth for our good, he places us on the potter's wheel to fashion and to mould us into vessels that he would want us to be. So brother, sister, never doubt. Never doubt that God's goodness has changed towards you in days of darkness. Never question that God's goodness, whenever you feel the sharp edge of the pruning knife in some area of your character, God is saying to you that that must stop in your life. That relationship must be broken off from. Never question God's goodness. Never question God's goodness when He puts you on the potter's wheel and He fashions you and He handles you and He works you on the wheel like the clay to make you into the vessel that God wants you to be. God is good all the time. All the time God is good. His goodness never changes. Can I say also in the fifth place that God is unchangeable in His truth. His truth. Men want to change truth. What is truth? Pilate asked. He should have asked, who is truth? Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. We live in a society today where truth, right and wrong, sin and wickedness, righteousness and unrighteousness, there seems to be, as it were, a blurring of the lines, but God's truth never changes. And I say that God's standards do not change. Standards within the church, they do not change. His truth with respect to how we are to conduct ourselves as God's people, it does not change. Understand it, brother. Understand it, sister. God's truth will never change. Never change. We have changed. His truth does not change. God's truth is unchangeable, and therefore his precepts are unchangeable. Understand that, young person. You're going to form relationships with people someday. Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. That's God's truth. Never change. It'll never change. while earth and time and sense are here. It'll never change. That's God's truth. His precepts do not change. God has spoken. What he has said will be accomplished. He has promised he'll bring it to pass. What he has said, it shall be done. Yes, his truth never changes. And so may we be found bringing our lives into line with God's truths. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. That's God's truth, and it'll never change. Society may move away from that, but God's truth will never change. I trust that you're living that out in your life. Well, we've seen that God's immutable in his perfections. Let's go quickly. He's immutable in his purposes. Everything that comes to pass in this world does so in accordance to the divine will of God, and that will is unchangeable. I read in Job 23 verse 13 and 14, But he is in one mind, and who can turn him? And what is so desireth even that he doeth? For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me, and many such things are with him. Psalm 31 verse 11, The counsel of the Lord standeth forever. Isaiah 14, 24, the Lord of hosts has sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand. And because the will of God is unchangeable, His purposes are unchangeable, that means that they will always be executed and will never be frustrated. That which God has purposed in himself to do cannot change until he changes. And he cannot change until he ceases to be God. And that will never happen because what God has decreed from eternity is unalterable. Now maybe, child of God, your circumstances have changed recently. I want to assure you that the changes in your life have not taken your God by surprise. God has purposed for you those things that are appointed by God in your life that he has eternally decreed for you. Thank God they're being worked out presently in your life. You may find that hard to grasp, you may find that difficult to comprehend, but God is working all things after his immutable will. It's purposes. cannot change. God has a plan and God is working all things after the counsel of his own will and that will will never change. It is forever the same. His perfections, his purposes, finally his promises. God is immutable in his promises. Numbers 23 19 was one of the verses I pointed you to. God is not a man that he should lie, neither the Son of Man, that he should repent. Hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?" Matthew Henry, he said, these words, men change their minds and therefore break their words. They lie because they repent, but God does neither. He neither changes his mind and therefore never recalls his promise. In these words, Numbers 23, we have the idea that what God has promised, thank God, He will bring to pass. What He has promised, He will perform. what he has pledged to do, that he will do. That truth is enforced time and time again in scripture. Not one thing, Joshua said, not one thing of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you have failed. All have come to pass and not one thing have failed or off. Isaiah 89 verse 34, my covenant will I not break nor alter the thing that has gone out of my lips. And we've read Isaiah 40 verse 24. What God has promised, thank God, He'll perform. Failure to fulfill any promise contained within the Word would result in Him again no longer being a God. He has bound His Word to His unchangeable character, and therefore He is bound to keep His promises. Maybe you're still here today. You're awaiting the fulfillment of some God-given promise. A son, a daughter, a child who has wandered from God, and yet God gave you a promise. Can I say as you behold your immutable God, your unchanging God, I trust that today you'll be encouraged to know that what he has spoken, he will perform. That which has gone out of his lips, he will see to the fulfilling of it, because he is unchangeable in his promises and in the fulfillment of them. Maybe there's others you're concerned about some future trial. Maybe you're concerned about just life in general, or even an individual you're thinking about crossing over Death's River. Well, has God not promised his grace to be sufficient? Of course he has. And he has bound that promise to his unchangeable character. And so he will forever be the same, and that grace will be forever the same. You know, the truth that God is unchangeable in his promises, I believe, can be a tremendous comfort to our hearts as we face the unknown future. When old Saint said, God, about God, he is ever the same. His purpose is fixed, his will is stable, his word is sure. Here then is a rock on which we may fix our feet. Where the mighty torrent is sweeping away everything around us, the permanence of God's character guarantees the fulfillment of his promises. How God's immutability, his unchangeableness, how it stands in stark contrast to our fickle, changeable nature. You know, folks, we are like Reuben at times. Too often, we're unstable as water. That's the testimony of every human being. We are unstable as water. And although we will never be able in this life to attain to immutability, this thought of being unchangeable, we are to be a reflection of God in our lives. And so let us then be unmovable in our convictions, in our resolutions, in our service, in our faithfulness to God and to His work, because whenever we are unchangeable, whenever we are steadfast, unmovable in these things, we are, yes, to a finite degree, to a small degree, but at least to some degree, we are a reflection of our immutable God. to be here and there and yonder, unstable, moved all the time, undependable within the work of God. It is not a reflection of our God. Understand it. But those that are consistent, those that are immovable, always abiding in the work of God, they are showing a reflection of who their God is, that He that He is the unchanging and the unchangeable One. And while others change, and change they will, let it comfort your heart today that your God never changes. I am the Lord and I change not, He said. Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today and forever. And let me say this finally, and it is in conclusion, God's immutability is the ground of assurance who doubt their salvation. Having been justified by God, His immutable will will not permit you to being unjustified. Having promised to save those who call upon Him, God cannot change what He has promised. He is unchanging. He has justified you You cannot be unjustified by an unchanging God. He has decreed it to be so. Thomas Watson said, get an interest in the unchangeable God. Then thou art as a rock in the sea, unmovable in the midst of all changes. Get an interest in the unchangeable God. What a comfort to know this afternoon that our God is the unchangeable God, the God who is forever the same. May God bless our thoughts around the word today. Let's unite in prayer, please. Our loving Father, we thank thee for thy word and thy truth. We thank thee for God who never changes. We thank Thee for one who is forever the same. We realize that there is no being in this world that could be compared to Him. No mortal can with Him compared among the sons of men. We realize, O God, that there is none like unto Thee. We realize that we in and of ourselves are so changeable. We're like, O God, the clouds in the sky. We change, dear God. We're so fickle, we're like the weather. Oh God, we cry to thee that thou wilt help us in some manner to reflect God's unchangeable character in our lives. Help us to be dependable people. Help us to be steadfast. Help us to be always abounding in the work of God, immovable. Oh God, rid it to our convictions, holding them fast while the world around us changes. While truth and the world's concept of truth is molded into, oh God, society's thinking. Oh God, we pray that we'll stand by God's unchangeable truth. Heaven and earth may pass away, but my word shall never pass away. Oh God, help us to stand by the word. Bless us as we meet around the table, and those that have to leave us, may they do so. O God, with reverence, and O God, may hearts be challenged to remember the Saviour's dying love for them, and help them, O God, to just linger a little longer in their love for Christ. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.