Think back over the years. How has God treated you; and how have you treated Him? Has anything changed?
When we were youngsters, just kids, we couldn't wait to get to Sunday school - so eager to hear our teachers tell another story about Jesus that we'd never heard before. There was the story of Him gathering little children around Him, touching them, letting them sit in His lap as He told them how He had come to save them from their sins. There was the story of the paralyzed man, whose bed was tied to ropes as it was being let down through the ceiling in the house where Jesus' taught. “Son, your sins are forgiven,” He told the sad man. Then He healed him and the man went jumping about for joy. There was the story of Jesus' rising from the dead on Easter morn with beauty, joy, and the glory of salvation beaming everywhere. Those were good times when we first learned about our Savior. How eager we were to hear more! What happened?
When we got to be teenagers other things began to flow into our lives. So many things to do with so many different friends – active things, exciting things - or at least we thought they were. Church became boring; Sunday school nonexistent; devotions?; and as we sat in worship we maybe thought more about those things we were planning to do with our friends the upcoming week.
When we became adults there were things to maintain. We were tempted to let a job become more important than our time with the Lord. There was work to be done on the house, on the car, with our interests and hobbies, and the family needed our time. So many reasons to drift from the Lord Jesus, “our first love” (Rv.2:4)
Old age – what happens then? I'm getting close, but I'm not there yet. Still, as I observe it, the good thing is that many seem to return to that “first love.” They seem to be there more in Bible study and church, even with all the other problems of life they have. That's so good to see! But what about those who changed so much over the years? What about those who stayed away from the Lord Jesus too long and can't find their way back? Change can be good. But not that kind of change! That change is destructive eternally.
What does God say? In our text He said, “ I the Lord Do Not Change.” Then He turned to Israel and asked, “Did You?”
(I. A call to faithfulness.)
He didn't ask it with those exact words, but He questioned them. In fact He did more. He told them several ways in which they had changed and become unfaithful to Him. He highlighted three things. Here's number one: “Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me!” How had the forefathers turned away?
Go back to the very beginning, when everything was fresh and perfect in the Garden of Eden. What was the first thing God told Adam and Eve as He put them in the garden to take care of it for Him? He commanded, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die” (Gn.2:16). “Don't eat it,” He commanded. But within a few days they turned from His decree and ate when the Serpent tempted them.
Later, as Israel marched through the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land, they came to Mt. Sinai where God commanded, “You shall have no other gods. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them, for I am the Lord your God.” They agreed: “Everything that the Lord has said we will do” (Ex.20:3f;24:3). So eager to be faithful ! Yet, within a few days they turned away and made a golden calf, bowing down in worship to it.
As for Malachi's day, how had Israel turned from God? Here's the second thing God said about their change: “You rob me.”
Have you ever been robbed? When I was in Ft. Worth , our house was robbed one Sunday morning. Intruders kicked down the door while we were at church and entered our home to take our things. It was a strange feeling afterward, a feeling of violation because someone entered our personal domain and took from it.
Israel robbed God. How did they rob Him? God replied, “In tithes and offerings. Bring them into my house.”
They scrimped on their offerings to Him. But it really wasn't about money. God doesn't need money; He owns everything. It was more about violating Him by withholding love from Him.
When Paul encouraged New Testament Christians in the giving of their offerings, he said, “Test the sincerity of your love…for you know the grace (we could say “love”) of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor so that you through His poverty might become rich” (2Co.8:9). He went on to talk about “desire” and “eager willingness” in our giving to God because the giving of offerings is not so much an activity of the hand as it is an exercise of the heart, a heart that responds to God. Without love for the Savior reflected in what and how we give, we rob God. We violate Him. Israel had changed in this. Have we?
Consider the parable Jesus told in the Gospel Lesson today (Mt.25:14f). A man went away on a trip leaving varying amounts of his money in the hands of three servants. He told them to be faithful in their use of it while he was gone. Two servants put it to use. But the third servant, muttering things under his breath about “unfair master” and “hard man,” took what was entrusted to his care, dug a hole in the ground, threw it in, and left it there until the master returned. He was too lazy to care about his master and his master's things. Lovelessness prompted his unfaithfulness.
Had it always been that way for him? Jesus doesn't say. But God told Israel : “ You've changed . Now, you rob me, and (here's the third thing) you have said harsh things against me.” “Harsh things?” they asked. “What have we said against you?” “You have said, ‘It's futile to serve God. What did we gain by carrying out His requirements….But now we call the arrogant blessed.'”
It's about the same, dear friends, as when Christians look around them in the world and take note of their own struggles to make things work out, while unbelievers seem to sail along scot free. “They're better off than we are,” Israel complained
But God had been so good to them, always good! He Never Changes! He gave Adam and Eve a beautiful garden in which to live. He saved Noah from drowning in a terrible flood. He gave Abraham great wealth, a son, a large nation, and above all the promise of a Savior. He took Israel out of their slavery in Egypt to a land flowing with milk and honey where that Savior would be born. And these Israelites, He had brought back from their captivity in Babylon to rebuild the temple and their homes.
“ I the Lord Do Not Change.” He said. “ You are not destroyed. Test me and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room for it.…You will be called blessed by all nations for yours will be a delightful land. I will do this because I the Lord Do Not Change.” What a reminder for us all! It's a call to faithfulness in response to the Lord's faithfulness towards us. But even more…
II. …it's a call to see His promises fulfilled. We might change from kindergarten, through teenage years, as adults, into old age, but “He's the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hb.13:8).
Think of it, He promised to crush the head of the Serpent who tempted Adam and Eve to be unfaithful to Him. He promised Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David and more that He would send the Messiah to deliver us from sin. And that promise was kept when the Lord Jesus was born to live and die and rise again for us. Even now He sits at God's right hand taking care of everything for His people's good so that many others will hear this Gospel and get to heaven. He is faithful in seeing to it that this is done, even when our faithfulness to Him lags over our lifetimes. In the midst of change He is the same. What a great comfort that affects our lives!
When this call to see His faithfulness in His promises fulfilled came to these people in our text, we are told that they “talked with each other” about it. And the Lord bent down from heaven and listened. They got out a scroll and began to write down all the things from their history that they could remember showing that God never changed but fulfilled His promises to them.
I think of this occasion along the same lines as when you and I might draw up a list of “pros” and “cons” to see if we should do something. Have you ever done that? Some new endeavor or direction lies ahead of you in life and you don't know which way to go with it. So you take a tablet and in one column you list all the reasons for it and in the other column you list all reasons against it. Well, do that with God. On one side list all the things He's done for you, all the blessings, all the ways He's carried you in life, and then in big letters mark THE SAVIOR SENT and HEAVEN OPENED TO ME. Then on the other side write down all the times you've changed, turned away, robbed Him, talked against Him, and been unfaithful. What an eye-opener that would be!
That's what these believers did. After that the Lord assured them, “You will be mine, my treasured possessions. I will spare you, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. (Do you hear overtones of the story of the Prodigal Son there?) And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.”
Another gracious promise to forgive, to save, and to bless. Surely, the Lord does not change . How can we? God help us to live faithful lives to the Savior who has blessed us; for Jesus' sake.