We have the God who cannot lie. And yet we read of how He seems to change. The Lord is faithful and true. He answers and communes to test and draw people to Him. (Exodus 32:7-14)

Speaker: Mat Gehret
Sermon # 12625
Date: 2023-12-02
Time: Sun 11:00 AM

 

P. Mat Gehret –

Good morning. We’re going to be in Exodus 32 this morning. Exodus 32. We just did communion. We just did giving.
One thing I would say, or I would want to think about as we get into the sermon today is who
are we communing with? Who are we giving to? If we don’t know who God is, these can all just
be habits or practices or religious observances. But if we know who God is, then communion is
an extremely special time when we get to be with our Creator. And giving is even a more
special time because he’s given us so much. So with that in mind, we’re going to talk about the
immutability of God today in Exodus 32, so let’s pray. (Prayer)

We’re going to be in Exodus 32, and we’re going to start with vs. 7-10. But before I get there, I just
want to give you a few thoughts to get us ready to read this passage. So, God’s immutability.
Who knows what God’s immutability is? God is immutable. What’s another way to say that?
He’s unchanging. He does not change. Malachi 3:6. He does not change.

So, there’s a question about God’s nature that many Christians ask themselves in relation to his
immutability. It goes something like this. If God is immutable, then why does the Bible have
different passages where it appears that he changes his mind? If God does not change in his
thoughts, actions, or words, then why do passages exist that bring that into question as we
walk and we read and we learn? Another way of saying this is if God is constant, then can he
also be indecisive? Can God be indecisive about his plan, about his works, about his nature
toward his Creation?

Here’s a big theological word for you. Are you ready? Are these passages just
anthropopathisms? Anthropopathisms meaning God being spoken about in a way that displays
human emotion, human nature, human character so that we can relate with him. Is it
something more sinister like God is actually a liar even though the Bible says he’s not?
Millard Erickson, he wrote Christian theology. The most recent edition came out in 2019. He
kind of brings this issue, this overarching issue to the question. He says this, “the major issue
pertains to the nature of God. Is he fixed and unchanging in essence or does he grow and
develop like the rest of the universe as process theology contends?”

Well, we already mentioned Malachi 3:6. What does God say about himself? I am the Lord I change
not. I would say that’s pretty clear cut right there from the Bible, right from God’s mouth. I am
the Lord I change not.

How do we deal with these things? How do we understand God’s immutability if we are fallen
creatures who can’t understand an infinite God? Let’s take a look at a few definitions of
immutable and then we’ll get to the passage, okay. In Arthur Pink’s, “The Attributes of God,”
Arthur Pink defines immutable as this. “God is perpetually the same subject to no change in his
being, his attributes or his determinations.” That means whatever he has said goes.

Whatever he has declared that comes to pass. Whatever he does as a work, that work is done forever in
the book of Ecclesiastes. The New Unger’s Bible Dictionary calls it the divine attribute of
unchangeableness and references Exodus 3:14 where Moses goes to meet God at the burning
bush, God introduces himself as he says “I AM that I AM.” “I AM that I AM.” This is God pointing
to his unchanging nature. This is God pointing to eternality, to his infiniteness. I AM that I AM.
He’s saying I am the same today. I am the same tomorrow. I am the same before you were
created, and I will be the same for the rest of eternity. Heb. 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ the same
yesterday, today, and forever.”

In the New Testament, the writer of Hebrews doubles down on God’s immutability and bolsters
his reputation of not being a liar as he explains his constancy, Hebrews 6:13-18. He has promised
Abraham something, that Abraham could never uphold on his own, so he had to promise it says
in Hebrews 6:18 I could find no one greater so I sware by myself to make this promise come to pass.
If God were unchanging or going back and forth and saying one thing and doing another, then
this thing that took place with Abraham that affects all of us today; it affects how we
understand and think about how we think about Jesus Christ today would be meaninglessness
because he could just take it all back in a second.

So, as we get into Exodus 32, starting in vs. 7, I want us to go in depth to God’s immutability. I’m
going to give you my understanding of it as I stand here today and my hope is that in the end
your faith and ways will remain steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord
in 1 Corinthians 15:58. I believe as Numbers 23:19 says, you’ll see God as – what does it say? Numbers
23:19? Let’s read it. “God is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should
repent.” I believe you will see him this way after this morning’s message.

And of course, if you are new to the Bible or not new to the Bible and you enjoy reading your
Bible and you enjoy reading about it, I would encourage you greatly to look all these verses up
on your own after we’re done here.

There’s this great group in the Bible and they’re called Bereans and every time Paul preached to
them they would go back and make sure everything they preached actually came from the
Bible. So I encourage you to do so today.

Exodus 32:7-10, what does God say to Moses right here? God says, you know what? I’m really sick
of these guys. Let me go and take care of them. I’m going to wipe them all out. I’m going to
start you fresh, Moses. I’ll get you a whole new batch of people in the wilderness to take with
you in the Promised Land. Did you guys get that out of that? That’s what I got out of that. I
don’t know.

Let’s get down to vs. 14. Let’s see what it says there. Vs. 14. I’m reading from the King James by
the way. I don’t know what’s up on the board. I have no idea. Vs. 14. Did God just change his mind? Yes, he did someone says. Go ahead. Talk about it with your neighbor for a second. Did
God just change his mind? Think about those verses. Talk with someone next to you. Did God
just change his mind? I’m going to ask you to hold your answers in for a little bit. Think about it
for a few more minutes.

Let me give you a little bit of background about what’s happening in the story right now. A little
bit of context leading up to this situation. The Israelites are waiting at the bottom of Mt. Sinai
for Moses to come back down from the mountain. They’ve just been freed from Egypt. They’ve
escaped Pharaoh’s horseman through the parting of the Red Sea. Moses has been leading the
way the entire time. The entire time they’ve been with Moses at the helm, and all of a sudden
he’s up on this mountain for almost 40 days now, 40 nights, and the Israelites are getting a little
insecure about themselves. They’re not so sure about what’s going on. They’re getting a little
impatient, rightfully so. A number of things could have happened to a man walking up on a
mountain all by himself at that time.

So, in their insecurity, the Israelites look to Aaron and what do they do? They create an idol.
They create a golden calf, and they begin to worship it. They take all their jewelry, all their gold.
A lot of the riches that they left Egypt with, and they turn it into their own god. This god
becomes the god that they worship, and this god becomes the god that they say is the god who
delivered them from the Egyptians. What? Really? What happened? They forgotten the man of
God and more importantly, they’d forgotten God who had delivered them just a few short
weeks prior.

Now, here’s a little theopathism for you, okay. If we were to try to relate to how God thinks in
this situation, not that we ever can. We’re finite beings. He’s infinite, but let’s try for a second.
If I am God in this situation, and I just freed millions of people from the bondage of their
captors, and I’ve just taken them through the Red Sea, I have just delivered them from all of
their enemies. I have fed them when they were hungry. I have given them water when they
were thirsty. I have removed their enemies out of the way whenever they were faced with
enemies in the wilderness. How would I be feeling? How would you be feeling if you were God
right now?

May I say this. Every teacher, every parent, every friend, every sibling, every spouse in this
room should understand God’s sentiment right now. You should understand God’s sentiment
when you see a clear lack of trust in a person even after you’ve given so much to secure and
comfort the needs of that other person. Just before all of this, God had provided water. Manna.
Quails. Protection for Israel. This all took place in chapters 15 – 17 prior to this. Where is their
faith in God who brought them out of bondage? Where is the Israelite’s faith in the deliverer in
the song we heard, the third song? Deliverer. You brought us out of the miry clay. Where is
their faith in that deliverer? He brought them out of their fallen world into his perfect promises
to be going into the Promised Land. Where is their faith?

I would put the question this way for us. When we go through something difficult, where is our
faith? Whenever God seems to have disappeared for a moment or the man of God who has
been leading us seems to disappear for a moment, what happens to our faith?

Now, to be fair, every single one of us can relate to the Israelites. Someone they look up to and
believe in is missing. This is Moses. He’s been gone 40 nights. This is a different time period in
life. There’s no Face Time. There’s no Zoom. There’s not Find My Friends or messaging service
that gives them the opportunity to check in with their leader. Someone goes on a trip these
days and you just have to send a simple text. How’s it going? Great. Oh, okay. Awesome. And
that’s all it takes.

But whenever their leader is gone for 40 nights up on top of a very dark ominous mountain, it
says in Exodus 24:15-17 it’s dark, ominous, and fiery in their sight. You start to wonder, I don’t think
he’s coming back. I think we’re on our own here. I think we have to figure this out ourselves.
Moses as a representative of God has had a great effect in their lives up to this point, but now
he may never be coming back. Does this resonate with any of you here? Have you ever had
someone walk into your life, – a man or woman of God – who has greatly affected you for a
season – and then at the same time, as quick as that season started it came to an end and that
person seems to be gone? Has that ever happened to any of you?

It’s happened to me. I feel like I can relate to these people how they are feeling right now. They’ve discipled you through
love, patience, care. Even through correction and then they’re just gone.

Have we ever felt this way about God when we are in the thick of those unseen circumstances?
Have we ever thought that God actually does leave us or forsake us even though his Word says
that he doesn’t in Hebrews 13:5 in the book of Deuteronomy, in the book of Joshua? He says I will
never leave you or forsake you. If God is not immutable and God says I will never leave you or
forsake you, what do we care? But if he’s immutable and he doesn’t change, what he says will
surely come to pass. If he’s not a liar, then when he says I will never leave you, I will never
forsake you, that means something to us. That means something to you. If you’re a believer or
an unbeliever in this room, if you hear God saying to you, I will never leave you and never
forsake you, I would want to search out that relationship a little bit. I would want to see what
that God is talking about.

Okay, now let’s bring in the full picture of what’s going on here cause I purposely skipped over
three or four verses whenever we read that passage in Exodus 32. If you are in my Roman’s class,
what do I say all the time about reading the Bible? What’s the most important thing you need
to consider when you are reading the Bible? Oh, I was looking over there. We got someone
over here. Context. You need context.

Go back to Exodus 32, and we’re going to go to vs. 11 where I started to skip. Who is God
speaking to in the verses we have read so far. He’s speaking to Moses. Does Moses speak back
to God? Yeah, he does. It’s coming up right here in vs. 11. I’ve only shown you God speaking so
far, but Moses speaks back to him.

What is God most interested in when it comes to his Creation? All right. Communication.
Communion. Giving of each other. What does all of this speak to? Relationship. God is most
concerned with his relationship with his Creation. God is most concerned with Moses who he
has right in front of him on top of this mountain. He’s saying all these things about the Israelites
but he’s going to say something different to the Israelites later.

Right now, he’s speaking directly to Moses. He’s concerned about his relationship with Moses at this moment, at this
point in time. When God speaks to us, he wants us to speak back to him in Isaiah 1:18. God
says, come now, let us reason together. Together. Not let me do all the talking. You listen and
just obey. He says let us reason together. Let us be on the same page. Here’s what I’m doing.
Here’s why I’m doing it. Do you believe it? Do you have faith in that? Do you want to ask me
any questions?

I believe he’s testing Moses. I don’t believe he has any intention of wiping out the Israelites
right then and there. And whenever you read that passage, it doesn’t say he’s going to do it
right then and there. He’s testing his leader Moses to see what is in the leader’s heart. God
testing his people is all throughout the Bible. The first chapter of James. Romans 5, 1 Peter 1 all
speak to it. Let’s just know that God tests us and it’s for our benefit. It's for us to become
partakers of his holiness. So, let’s see what it says here.

Exodus 32:12-13, remember talking about that, Hebrews 6:13? Vs. 13. And then we get to vs. 14. Before
we get to whether or not God changes his mind, let’s talk about Moses for a second. Do you
think as the leader of this crazy congregation, millions of people down at the bottom of the
mountain worshipping golden calf idols and it says they lose most of their clothing because they
are so focused on worshiping this god. Do you think Moses as a leader passes the test before
God as this moment? What did Moses ask of God? Don’t do it. Don’t take out these people. If
not for the fact that they’re your people, do it for your name sake, God. Do it for the fact that
you promised us. You swore to our fathers before us, and that we’re just living in these
promises that you’ve given us, so don’t do it, Lord.

The result of God not taking action right then and there on the Israelites is definitely the result
of Moses’ heart as a leader for them. When Moses hears God’s intention, he instantly calls on
God and his immutability. He calls God on his immutability. Why would Moses call God on his
immutability if in the next verse we all sit there and think God changes his mind? Does that
make sense?

God does not change. God does not say one thing and do the other. Moses calls out God for
who he is, the I AM that I AM that introduced himself to him when they met at the burning
bush. Moses says in a nutshell, God you can’t do this. Do you remember your promises? When
God tests our faith, we are not only able to but all power is given to us to call God out on his
promises. In Hebrews 4:16, do you know what it says that we can do as believers? It says that we
can come boldly to his throne to receive grace and mercy in our time of need.

What if we don’t believe we can? What if we believe God changes his mind about us? What if
we believe that something that we did excludes us from being able to go to the throne of his
grace and demand his grace and his mercy in our time of need? God says we can do that. God
says we can do that.

We can ask God to fill us with his perfect love in 1 John 4:18 when we have fear in our lives.
Fear has torment it says but perfect love casts out fear. But what if we don’t believe that? What
if we think the fear is too great? What if we think the circumstances are too big? What if we
think everything is caving in around us? God says rely on my perfect love. I’m not changing. I’m
not going anywhere. I’m not going to leave you. I’m not going to forsake you. I’m not going to
leave you out to dry. Consume you in your sin. I’m going to give you an opportunity to respond
to me by faith.

All right. So, let’s go back to Exodus 32:14. Did God change his mind? We said in Nu. 23:19 that God
will not repent and yet Moses here in Exodus 32:14 as he recorded it said God repented. The better
and more accurate word here is God “relented” of the evil he thought to do to his people. You
can look through different translations of the Bible and you’ll see relented used in multiple
different translations. But that’s not even the point. That’s not even the point.

It is more accurate because God does in fact follow through with destroying everyone in the camp in Numbers
14. Only Joshua and Caleb are spared. Everyone else does actually get consumed. God says it
and though it doesn’t happen right then and there, it does end up happening. So, God is still not
a liar. God is still not just changing his mind right there in the moment. He is holding back his
judgment.

Now, let me make this perfectly clear to all of you here today. We are all results of God holding
back his judgment on our lives. The Israelites are in this chapter and every single one of us are
results of God constraining himself from his judgment that we would have an opportunity by
faith to respond to him. If he were not immutable, every single one of us would not be here
right now. Every single one of us would be dealt with in our sins already and just wiped away. It
is no mistake.

It is no mistake that Peter says – I think it’s 2 Peter 3 – “the Lord is not slack concerning his
promise as some men count slackness but is longsuffering to us not willing that any should
perish but that all should come to repentance.” In Isaiah 30:18, God is waiting to be gracious to

Israel in the book of Isaiah, but God is also waiting to be gracious to us. In the book of Jeremiah,
he calls Israel again and again to return unto him. Over and over again. And because God is
immutable, we know that he calls to us over and over again to return unto him whenever we
are lost in the thick of our sin. Whenever we are lost in the thick of circumstances. Whenever
we can’t see the light because the darkness all around us is so great.

He never planned to judge the Israelites right then and there. Instead, he used his omniscience,
his all knowing power of what would happen to those in the wilderness and put Moses to the
test. Instead of worrying about whether God changes his mind, maybe we should consider if
we’ve made us our mind about who God is. Have you made up your mind about who God is?
One more passage. Next chapter over, Exodus 33, and then we’ll wrap it up here. After all this takes
place, Moses comes down from the mountain with the law. He comes down and looks at what
happened, and he gets righteously indignant. He throws the tablets down.

They’re destroyed. And he calls all the Levites unto him and says go out into the camp and destroy those people
who are being evil, and it says 3,000 men are killed right then and there in that situation that
took place.

But in the next chapter, when God tells Moses to take the congregation and move on, they
move to Mt. Horeb it says. Whenever the whole congregation camps in Mt. Horeb, then Moses
is instructed to take God’s tabernacle outside of the camp over out of the way because that’s
where God’s presence wanted to be manifested for the camp.

Now, why would God does this? Exodus 33:7, so this crazy thing happens with the Israelites. They all
get caught up in idolatry. They all lose their sight on Moses and God. They all lose their sight on
the deliverance that they already have through him. And Moses gives them another chance the
next time they move, and he puts the tabernacle away from them. Why? Hebrews 13:12-14,
because just as God was testing Moses up on top of the mountain with his people down there
caught up in sin, God has an opportunity to speak to his people now that were caught up in sin.
He says come out to me and find me and let’s commune together.

This is true for every single one of us if you are a believer in this room. At one point, we left the
congregation. We left the life of sin. We left the course of the world, and we went out and
found God because he drew us there. He drew us there. The man of God said, hey, this is where
God’s presence is going to be. Do you want it? Come out this way. Come on over here. Let’s see
it. And one by one the people would come out of the camp to see what God was doing out
there. And when his glory appeared, you go back to Exodus 33, they all rejoiced when his glory
appeared.

As believers, we’re always called out of the camp. As believers, we’re always called individually
by God to go out to him and commune with him. When we pray, Matthew 6, we go into our closet alone to pray with him, to commune with him. When Abraham was called in Isaiah 51 or
61, he was called by himself. When Moses saw the burning bush, he turned aside and was
called by himself to commune with God.

Every single one of us has had that opportunity to respond to God, and as we walk with him, and as we get caught up in all of life’s stuff, we have that opportunity again over and over again because God does not change. He is immutable. He doesn’t want you stuck in your stuff. He wants to take you out of it, show you his glory, show
you who he is, and motivate you to keep on moving with him, because he has a lot of great,
amazing things that we can’t even fathom doing on our own but with him we can do all things.
And if you are an unbeliever in this room, same thing.

He’s calling you out to his camp. He’s calling you out of the world that you’ve just been clinging to, that group of people that are so focused on this golden calf idol. Who are so focused on the riches of this world. Who are so
focused on golden this, …that. And he’s saying get out of there. Get away from it and come find
me because I’m right here waiting to be gracious to you. I’m right here waiting to show you that
I do not change, that I will always be with you, that I will never leave you or never forsake you.
And he did that as a picture in the Old Testament, and he did that through his Son Christ being
crucified outside of Jerusalem in the New Testament to show you what he’s willing to do for
you. How far he’s willing to go for you. How much he’s willing to sacrifice so you would be with
him.

God is unchanging and unwavering in his love for us. His perfect gifts come from him without
variableness in James 1:17 and without repentance in Romans 11:29. Because we know God is
immutable and Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, we know that he’s
waiting to be gracious to us. We just need to respond. We just need to have faith. We just need
to say, yes, Lord, I believe you and go look for him cause he’s right there. Let’s pray. (Prayer).

 

Please enjoy these sermon notes from the messages preached at Greater Grace Church in Baltimore. These notes are provided to aid in your study and understanding of the Word. Note that these notes do not represent complete, word-for-word transcriptions. Also, they may contain omissions as well as some errors in spelling and structure, etc., as we attempt to provide them as soon as possible. Our hope is that these notes serve as a way to help you search and connect with messages on related subjects and passages. Thank you for your interest in the ministry of Greater Grace.