Unchangeable God

 Jeremiah 30:12-17

Do you ever ponder on what it would be like to never change, often at places where my friends from High School meet up, and now that I’ve been away from 3M for a few years, people will often say some foolish things, like you have not changed?  My first thought is they need glasses, or they need money, and foolishly believe I have some.  We change both in our values, looks and most of all in our beliefs.  Most of us have had a life since high school we married, had children, had careers and have many bought lessons, living life.  Some have not been blessed with good health, some by drinking and eating too much, others by inheriting bad genes.  It is my observation, a disciplined life brings blessing, and an undisciplined life brings curses.  But the bottom line is we change, and we are not the same as we were in school.

So when we encounter an unchangeable God often we try to make Him change so that we have an understanding of Him, and try to make God like us, we try to make the Creator into the created.  Now the rest of the story is if your God is so small that He now has become a conservative and you and he agree 90% of the time, you have become the creator of a little god.

Shall we explore verses 12-15, “For this is what the Lord says: Your injury is incurable; your wound most severe.  No one takes up the case for your sores.  There is no healing for you.  All your lovers have forgotten you; they no longer look for you, for I have struck you as an enemy would, with the discipline of someone cruel, because of your enormous guilt and your innumerable sins.  Why do you cry out about your injury?  Your pain has no cure!  I have done these things to you because of your enormous guilt and your innumerable sins.”  Many of us have heard the preacher proclaim, sin will always take you deeper than you are willing to go.  I know of no one whose goal was to be an alcoholic, no one got married so they could divorce.  No one would set out to be a sex addict or a drug addict, but sin has a way of taking us deeper than we desire. 

Israel and Judah believed they could bribe God with religious service while worshiping the little gods of sex, materials, and power, but the Lord said your injury is incurable; there is no healing for you.  In that they were His people He disciplined them with the discipline of someone cruel that is not a God most of us want to understand, for we do not know His ways.  But God has made it very clear in verse 15 why this has to take place.

In verses 16, our unchangeable God is bringing Israel and Judah to a point where He can restore them.  The nations that were used by God to awaken His people are now experiencing the same and even worse than they did to Israel and Judah.  Neither you nor I can have a full understanding of God, and we sin when we as mere humans attempt to lower God to someone we have an understanding of.  This we can know, He is the same today as He was in the beginning, and He changes not.  Maybe we need to once more read Job’s replies to the Lord; “Then Job replied to the Lord:  I know that You can do anything and no plan of Yours can be thwarted.  You asked, “Who is this who conceals My counsel with ignorance?”
Surely I spoke about things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.  You said, “Listen now, and I will speak.  When I question you, you will inform Me.”  I had heard rumors about You, but now my eyes have seen You.
Therefore I take back my words and repent in dust and ashes.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice