God Has Already Seen Your Future!

Psalm 90; Malachi 3:6

Intro:

1. Where will God be when you hit your next crisis?  What will He be like when your world is crumbling? If He is changeable, you have no way of knowing.

What I want to say:  God is eternal and unchanging. These attributes give us solid ground on which to stand throughout earthly life. Without them this life is uncertain at best. Today we will examine God’s immutability and eternity.

I.      God never changes (Malachi 3:6)

A.    Everything we know changes

1.    Change means a different condition

a)    Better-worse

b)    Less-more

c)    Richer-poorer

d)    Stronger-weaker

2.    All people change

a)    Grow older

b)    Taller

c)    Heavier or thinner

d)    Grayer

e)    Wiser or more foolish

3.    Change is part of life

a)    You are not what you were seven years ago - all the cells in your body have been replaced

b)    All the changes we know, however, lead the same way – to eventual decay.

4.    When God intervenes, the change of decay becomes reversible.

B.    God is completely reliable (Malachi 3:6)

1.    The word is “immutable” – we know what a mutation is – a change. God is immutable.

“For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. Malachi 3:6 ESV

So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. Hebrews 6:17-18 ESV

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. James 1:17 ESV

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Hebrews 13:8 ESV

2.    We really do not want God to be changeable

3.    When you face trials do you want a God who is unpredictable or do you want an everlasting Rock? (Isaiah 26:4)

4.    When life is uncertain do you want to be driven by insecurity or do you want an anchor for your soul?

5.    When life becomes a storm do you want a straw house or a stronghold?

C.   Truth does not change

ILLUS> Joseph Fletcher turned the moral world upside down with a book called “Situation Ethics” in 1966. The premise he let loose on the world was an old one but once embraced it unhitched morality from truth and unleashed a wave of broken relationships, excused adultery, infidelity and sexually transmitted disease from which millions still suffer. What Fletcher did was to propose that right is not always right and wrong is not always wrong – it just depends on the situation and one’s opinion of it.  From this we get the “if it feels good, do it” morality.  So lies, adultery, theft are only wrong relative to the situation. 

     The problem with that kind of thinking is that God, who is truth and determines right and wrong, does not change. Relativistic thinking wounds people by taking away the shelter of truth.

1.    Sin will always be sin; Wrong will always be wrong; Right will always be right and God’s word is the standard.

2.    Murder will always be sin; Adultery will always be sin; theft, covetousness, blasphemy will always be sins because it is God, not our opinion that determines what is right and what is wrong.

II.    How long is “Eternal”?

A.    “Everlasting” is used in two ways in Scripture

1.    As in “everlasting hills” (Genesis 49:26) – meaning as long as the earth lasts.  Since we know the earth is not eternal then nothing on it can be.

2.    Hebrew: to perpetuity or “from vanishing point to vanishing point”

E.g. C.S. Lewis’ illustration of time and eternity – a sheet of paper that extends infinitely in each direction. Draw a short line on it. That represents time. As the line begins and ends on that infinite expanse, so time began in God and will end in Him.

>Show Symbols of eternity

B.    Some people do not want God to be eternal

1.    They want a god that they can manage

a)    Like the gods of the Greeks and Romans who were larger than life humans

b)    But a God who is eternal is beyond human management

2.    They do not want to believe in eternal punishment

a)    If God is not eternal, than there cannot be eternal punishment since nothing can be eternal

b)    This, again, is an error embraced by some cults

“This is not the only instance where an attempt was made to slay a truth to keep it quiet lest it appear as a material witness against an error.”  A.W. Tozer (p. 44)

3.    God had no beginning (Genesis 21:33)

a)    He has no past or future.  These are terms for creatures who live in time

b)    We have our “yesterdays” and “tomorrows” but God has only the present He is always in the present.

Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God. Genesis 21:33 ESV

c)    This is one of the names of God: El Olam – the everlasting God

C.   Prophecy is our future but God’s present (Isaiah 46:10)

1.    Did you ever wonder how the Bible could contain what we call prophesy?

2.    How could Isaiah or Daniel foretell the coming of Messiah with such detail that some 300 prophecies are fulfilled in Jesus’ birth, life, death, resurrection and return? All the prophecies of the Messiah were written at least 450 years before Christ was born!  Only someone who knows what is coming could tell it.

remember the former things of old;

for I am God, and there is no other;

I am God, and there is none like me,

declaring the end from the beginning

and from ancient times things not yet done,

saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,

and I will accomplish all my purpose,’  Isaiah 46:9-10 ESV

3.    How does God know what will happen before we do?

4.    It is because He is already there in our future. It is not that God has to hope that certain events come together.

Peter wrote his first letter to…

“…those who are elect exiles … according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood…”  1 Peter 1:1-2 ESV

ILLUS>  Tozer,: imagine everything away – God was there before everything began.  Then you have the beginning of understanding eternity. (Attributes of God, volume 2, p. 55-56)

5.    How did God know that Jesus would be the “lamb slain before the foundation of the world”? (Rev. 13:8) Because before there was a world, before there was a human, before there was a sin there was God and in His foreknowledge He provided for salvation.

6.    Therefore, when God considers your future it is present reality to Him. He is already in your future.

D.   A god who is not eternal is no god at all

1.    It is no light thing that Paul speaks of us being “in Christ”

2.    He is all of your tomorrows. When a believer dies and goes to heaven he is in God - forever

3.    Heaven is not a rented apartment but an eternal home – in God.

4.    We like to think of heaven as being “with” God but God is with us and we are in Him.

5.    If God is not eternal there is no eternal life because all life is in Him

III.   Man is mortal and God is eternal (Psalm 90)

A.    God’s eternity is the foundation of human security (90:1-2)

1.    He was there before earth was

2.    Nothing that is could be without Him as the Cause of all.

B.    Man is well-formed dust (90:3-11)

1.    God made Adam of the earth – and to earth we return

2.    Our years are transient like:

a)    Something swept away in a flood

b)    A dream

c)    Grass

3.    We pass with an awareness of our sinfulness (:7-8)

4.    Life is a struggle (:9-11)

C.   Joy in life is found in living with eternal perspective and purpose (:12-17)

1.    Teach us to number our days

a)    So we don’t waste them away

b)    So that we end them having grown in wisdom

2.    Long for His coming

3.    Satisfy us in your love (:14)

a)    Are you finding satisfaction in God’s love?

4.    Make us glad

5.    Let us see Your work (not our trivial pursuits)

a)    Think of the game

6.    This is the great battle for us in the 21st century – will we entertain ourselves into a coma of self-centered pursuit or will our work matter?

a)    This is the great significance of the work of the Church – it deals with eternal souls and lasts into eternity

7.    That is why Jesus admonished us not to store up treasures on earth that rot but eternal treasure in heaven (Matthew 6:19-20)

8.    Paul reminded us that we can spend this life on things that last or things that will be burned up. (1 Corinthians 3:11-15)

a)    If you live for clothing, it will all be given to someone else or thrown away

b)    If you live for gadgets, they will all break or become outmoded.

c)    If you are a collector, someday it will be sold

9.    Let our life’s labor matter for eternity (:17)

Concl:

That’s my King!

-          Thank God He is eternal!

-          His covenants are everlasting (Genesis 17:7)

-          His everlasting arms are ready to catch you (Deuteronomy 33:27)

-          His salvation is eternal (Isaiah 45:17)

-          His love is everlasting (Isaiah 54:8)

-          He is everlasting light (Isaiah 60:19)

-          He is everlasting joy (Isaiah 61:7)