Go to Malachi chapter 3. I read
this last week, Malachi chapter 3. And I'm just going to read one
verse for right now. Verse 6, Malachi chapter 3, verse
6. For I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore ye sons of Jacob are
not consumed. This is a passage, when this
was written, it was what our Lord would do. He would come. We see that in scripture as it
concerns this specifically, that in the Old Testament we see what
God would do, and in the New Testament we see what God has
done. Both agree with one another. Because what God would do, God
has done. So why do we look at or yet want
to know what God would do? In other words, why do we look
at the Old Testament scripture to see what God would do? Because
what he would do, he has done. It is finished, our Lord cried
out. Are we not interested in what
God would do or has done? Most certainly we want to hear
that. If we were to come to chapel and hear something other than
that, those who are His would not come very long. We have to
hear of Him. I'm not so much interested in
a history lesson, although I need to know some of the history in
God's Word. I'm okay with knowing the history,
but it cannot just be a history lesson. We want to know what
He has done. But what God would do is not
only what he has done, but it is also what he is doing. Hebrews 9.28 we read, so Christ
was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that
look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto
salvation. We read in verse six, for I am
the Lord, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. This is Jesus Christ as Moose
pointed out last week. For I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore ye sons of Jacob are
not consumed. So what God would do, what he
has done, and what he is doing are all the same because God
does not change. So let's look at what God would
do, and in doing so, we will see what God has done, for He
is the Lord, all caps, and He changes not, and that is why
His people are not consumed. So one, messenger sent. What
is the changeless decree, and what is the result of God's unchangeableness? So first, messenger sent. The first messenger. Let's turn
over to 11, Matthew chapter 11, just a little bit over. Matthew
chapter 11, verses seven through 10. Let's read of this messenger. Matthew chapter 11, verses seven
through 10. And as they departed, Jesus began
to say unto the multitudes, And as they departed, Jesus began
to say unto the multitudes concerning John, what went ye out into the
wilderness to see? I read, shaken with the wind,
but what went ye out for to see, a man clothed in soft raiment?
Behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. But what
went ye out for to see, a prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and more
than a prophet, for this is he of whom it is written, behold,
I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy
way before thee. The first messenger sent was
John the Baptist. This is told us right there by
Jesus Christ himself. So there is no doubt of this,
of who this first messenger is. Now there's nothing special about
this messenger other than the fact that God sent him. Any messenger
sent by God is not special in and of themselves. The specialness
comes in the message they bring. And as we read there in Matthew,
Christ asked them, did they expect to see this messenger to be a
royal person, someone who was decked out in royal garb? Were
they expecting someone who they could manipulate or who was scared
to say what he was sent to say? So let's look at some things
about this messenger. Why was he sent? It says here
in Malachi 3, and he shall prepare the way before me. John the Baptist
came not to point everyone to himself and say, look at me,
but to point or to turn those who heard him to that one person
who was to come. John tells us in one place in
John 1 verses 27, me is preferred before me, whose
shoe latchet I am not worthy to unloose. He, by the grace
in Christ, did not waver in declaring that there was one coming. It
was not he himself, but another who was far above him and far
above anyone else who heard him. This one who was coming was the
Messiah. What does John say? And let's
read verses 2 and 3 of Malachi 3. 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 soap. And he shall sit
as a refiner, and purifier of silver. And 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. Behold the
Lamb of God, John says. a lamb, the one coming as a sacrifice
for his people. A lamb signifies that which by
the law was offered up unto God for a sweet-smelling sacrifice
to him. But not just that. We read in
scripture God calling his people sheep. So this also signifies
God coming down and becoming what they are, a lamb. Christ
being made a man and was made under the law and this was done
for a specific purpose. What else does this messenger
say? Which taketh away the sin of the world. Here is where we
see him as a sacrifice because it is a sacrifice that is needed
to take away sin. But it could not be a sacrifice
of bulls and goats. It had to be a sacrifice of a
man. It would be him who was and is
the Lamb of God that would do this. What will he accomplish? Verse 4, Malachi 3. Then shall the offering of Judah
and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord as in the days of old
and as in former years. We already spoke about it from
what John the Baptist said in proclaiming his name. He would
be the offering that would be pleasant to the Lord. Capital
L, capital O, capital R, capital D. Is that not amazing to you? He would be an offering unto
himself. God would offer a sacrifice unto
himself, and he would be the sacrifice. He would forsake himself
so God would forsake God for that which his people, he did
for his people. These things are too high for
me. They're really too high for any one of us to comprehend.
But this messenger, John the Baptist, was sent to prepare
the way. He pointed men and women to the
second messenger which was to come. So now we have the second
messenger. We read of this second messenger
in verse one as well. 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. Here we see a shout, and it is
a glorious shout. This shall means it is something
that would certainly come to pass. And of course, we know
now that it did come to pass. This messenger, the second, who
was actually the first, he was the messenger of the covenant,
the covenant made by the three in one. And I will say it like
this, and maybe it's not the best way to say it, but I'm going
to say it like this. But that covenant which God the Father
decreed, that covenant which God the Son carried out or performed,
and that covenant which the Holy Spirit applies to his sheep,
this covenant which would result in taking away the sin of the
world, and that is God's world, why was he sinned? Again, we've
already said why he was sinned, but let's look at it a little
further from the verse we just read. He will come near to you
to judgment. This messenger would come near
to us. He would condescend. He would
come down to where we are and for this one purpose, to judgment. And what he would do, he would
show and be witness to those who are described in verse five. Verse five. and I will come near
to you in judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the
sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and
against those that oppress the hiring in his wages, the widow
and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from
his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts. Sorcerers,
adulterers, false swearers, those that oppress the hiring in his
wages, the widow and the fatherless, that turn aside the stranger
from his right. Those that fear not me, is what
it says. This concerns me a little bit,
because I read in Romans chapter three, there is none righteous,
no, not one. There is none that understandeth,
and there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone
out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher,
and with tongues they have used deceit. The poison of Asp is
under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.
Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery
are in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known.
And here it is proclaimed to us from God's word, and it's
true for every single one of us. There is no fear of God before
their eyes. But here is another thing about
him coming near to us. Not only would he come to where
we are, he and what he would do would come to us embracing
us in his arms. So what did he do? He paid the
penalty, I hope. Those who have not had Jesus
Christ die for them must and will die. this for all eternity
because God is eternal and He must be satisfied eternally.
So if we are to die on our own and as our own sacrifice, then
it will be eternal. There is no satisfaction to God
in us dying in our own stead. The satisfaction only comes in
the smoke of man's torment coming up forever and ever. And this
is from Scripture, Revelation 14, 11. And the smoke of their
torment ascended up forever and ever, and they have no rest day
nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever
receiveth the mark of his name. This is not a game. This is not
a game to see how religious we can be. This is not a game of
what we can do for God. For we can do nothing but sin
against God for he tells us that even the plowing of the wicked
is sin. Working the ground to get your
food is sin against God if you are doing it outside of faith.
For we also read in scripture that without faith it is impossible
to please God. That also lets me know this,
that if I have faith, then I do please God when I do things in
faith. I know this world likes to talk
about their faith, but our faith, that is faith that we come up
with, faith that we work up, is a dead faith and will in no
way please God. You are platinum. The faith that
pleases God is the faith of Jesus. It is his faith. He is the author
and finisher of faith. He is also the one who gives
faith if, if, if he wills to give it. There's nothing you
can do to cause him to give you this faith. It is simply and
completely up to him as to whether he will give it or not. He is
not affected by our doing or our willingness. He is only affected
by His will. So what can we do? Bow down in
the dust and beg for mercy. Will He give it then because
I do something? That is, if I bow down, is that
what causes God to give us mercy and faith? Don't get the cart
before the horse. It is God shedding His grace
on us and giving us faith that enables us to bow down. Just as Carol Poole has said
before, we do not exercise faith, but faith exercises us. So those
who do bow down have been given mercy and given faith, and God
lets them know about it. This world's religion likes to
raise their hands in praise of God, but not one of them would
ever think of bowing down to the ground in the dirt, kissing
the sun's feet. They do not know him. But those
who are his are made to do this. Scripture says kiss the son lest
he be angry. This kissing is kissing his feet. This is still proved today. We
do this in that heart given by God. We bow down and kiss the
son's feet. Because God does not change and
we read here God saying this. So next we have what is the changeable
decree? The changeless decree. God in
the Old Testament is the God we read in the New Testament.
But this is also true. The God in the Old Testament
and the New Testament is the same God who lives today. God
does not change. If God killed in the Old Testament,
He kills in the New Testament. And He kills today. The same
God who suffered Satan to come before Him to request of God
to let Him do something. Yes, Satan had to come to God
Almighty before his throne to ask him if he, that is, if Satan,
could do something. Satan wanted to harm Job, but
God would not allow him. Satan even says, you have a hedge
about him. God allowed Satan, and if Satan
is to do anything, it will be because God allows him to do
something. You and I will not stop him from
doing anything, asked Peter. Nothing happens that God has
not allowed. You mean this bad thing happened
here or that bad thing that happened over there because God allowed
it? Yes. Read Job. God allowed Satan to
destroy Job's family and basically everything he had. God does not
change. He is in the heavens and has
done whatsoever he has pleased. Someone might say, well, my God
is not like that. I'm not saying they are lying.
Their God may not be like that, but the God of this scripture
is like that because we read of him in the scripture. He says
he does not change. So the depth and the soundness
of the decree. Verse 6 of Malachi 3 we read,
for I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore ye sons of Jacob are
not consumed. He says he is the Lord. This is Jesus Christ speaking.
Jesus Christ is the word of God, and when you hear God speaking,
you are hearing Jesus Christ. So when it says here, for I am
the Lord, Jesus Christ is saying, I am God. Then he says, I change
not, period, or exclamation point, end of thought. There is nothing
that will change God. He will not change himself. Because
of this, there is a benefit to some. Because God, who does what
he pleases, and he has always done as he pleases, and he was
pleased to come down a messenger of the covenant, there is benefit
to some because this also does not change. God decreed, he made
a covenant to save a people, and this he did. No one is going
to change that. God, who is eternal, who came
down as a lamb, and this lamb was slain before the foundation
of the world, but was slain in time because he condescended. We are told of that one who came
down and was born of a virgin. Matthew 121, we read, and she
shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins. This is the
Lord, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, Jesus Christ the
Lord. This he had always purposed to
do, so it was done. Him paying for our sins, and
they were paid for eternally because God is eternal. What
is the result of this? We have a therefore in this verse.
So because he is the Lord and because he does not change, therefore
the sons of Jacob are not consumed. God's people will never be cast
out. They will never be consumed because
God does not change and he says he loved his people with an everlasting
love. He tells us he will never leave
us or forsake us. And he does not change, so this
will always be true for his people. So next, his people. Who was
the decree made to? Thieves. Those who rob God. The Lord Jesus Christ asked us
here, will a man rob God? What does man say? Man will say
no. Ask them, ask us. What will we
say as we are born in heaven? But ye say, wherein have we robbed
thee? This is God Almighty talking
to us. We will say we have not robbed
God, but God says we do. What does God say? Yet ye have
robbed me. Verse 9 says, ye are cursed with
the curse, for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. We are all just like the Israelites
of old when they got to the promised land. We will always say and
do the opposite of what God tells us to do. God tells us to go
in and we say we will not go in. Then he tells us we will
not go in and we say we will go in. That's what we read right
here. God is telling them and telling
us that we robbed God, but we turn around and say it again,
when have we robbed you? We are not unchangeable. We,
in fact, change all the time as we are born in Adam. We read
it before, Isaiah 49, 15. Can a woman forget her sucking
child that she should not have compassion on the son of her
womb? Yea, they may forget. Yet will I not forget thee. We
can love someone one minute and hate them the next. We can love
God one minute and hate God the next. So who are those that God
has sent his messengers to? They are God robbers. They are
thieves. They want to take God's glory and make it their own.
It shows in many different ways, but let me name a few. Some will
say, and I've said these things before myself, I will and can
choose God if I want to. God says you will not choose
him, that he must choose you. So you are robbing God of his
glory, that glory that says he is in absolute sovereign control
and will choose whom he is pleased to choose. Another one. I can
and will keep the law of God for my salvation or because of
my salvation. God robbers. They want to take
away the glory of God, that glory that testifies to the fact that
we could not keep his law, and we will not, and we have not
kept his law in any way, shape, or form. But not only that, because
of this, in order for Him to save a people, He had to come
down, the Lamb of God, to take away our sins. He kept the law
of God, and I keep it in Him. So God does all He does for those
who rob Him and are proud in the fact that they do this to
Him. Now don't get me wrong. Those whom he does this for do
in time come to the acknowledging of all of this and they do by
his power and grace come to know that they are robbers. And they
come to that point of being given faith whereby they please God. How do they do this? They believe
him. They believe he kept the law
and he also died the death to pay the penalty I owe for not
keeping the law. therefore making me free from
that law. So what does his unchangeableness
result in for his people? So we have next, what is the
result of God's unchangeableness? Verses 15 through 18 of chapter
3. 15 through 18. And now we call the
proud happy. Yea, they that work wickedness
are set up. Yea, they that tempt God are
even delivered. Then they that feared the Lord
spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard
it. And a book of remembrance was written before him for them
that feared the Lord and that thought upon his name. And they
shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts. In that day, when I
make up my jewels and I will spare them as a man spareth his
own son that serveth him, then shall ye return and discern between
the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God
and him that serveth him not. In verse 11, we read where God
will do some things. Who is the devourer? Satan. God
will not let any of his to be destroyed. There may be some
pain in the believer's life, but the believer will never be
destroyed because God has rebuked the destroyer. But when the messenger
of the covenant came, he did some things that would cause
some to change. But the change would not be him
or not with him, but for his people. His people must be changed. So what is some of the change
that we see in our text that comes to those he did this for? Number one, fear. First of all,
those who at one time had no fear of God before their eyes
now begin to fear him. They begin to reverence this
holy God. They know he has the right and
the might to do as he pleases. It is not a slavish fear, but
a reverential fear. Although his people are glad
to be servants of the king because they know this king will take
care of them. But because of this messenger, the second, the
one who is actually first, they then come to fear him because
he makes them his. So they are his, number two.
And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts. Here it says
they shall, but now we can say they are. He has done what was
needed to bring them near to himself. What did we read in
verse five? He would come near to you to
judge you. For those he came for, he judged
their sin in his own body on that tree. When he did this,
then they were by his word, and dying and then being raised again
are brought nigh unto him. You know the saying, Jesus Christ
was the only one who could touch God and not be consumed, and
touch man and not be defiled, and bring them both together
in himself. You cannot get any nigher to God, any closer to
God than that. In Christ is as nigh as a person
can be, because Christ is God. In Him doing all the work, not
only are those who He died for not a God, not only do they fear
God, but they also have, number three, discernment. When God
comes to us and visits us, that is when God calls us out, we
then, because of His gifts, are then enabled to discern some
things. First of all, we can discern
between righteous and wicked. We, at the time, will finally
be able to take sides with God against ourselves, and we will
be able to say, I have robbed God. This old man still hates
God with all of his, but his gifts allow us to be able to
know what is righteous and what is wicked. We are wicked as we
are born in Adam, and Jesus Christ is the righteous. because we
know what we are without him. We also know those who serve
God and those who do not. We know because we have done
it before. We've been there. Those who do
not serve God, rob God. We know very well how this is
done because we have done it ourselves, haven't we? So anyone
who tries to steal God's glory and give themselves any glory
at all and at any time, do not fear God and do not worship God. So what do we have? What do we
have to fear? God does not change. Because
he does not change and he does as he pleases, we can trust that
when he says we are not consumed, then it is forever. If God says
he loves us, then he does not change. So he always loves us. If he died for our sins and saved
us from them, he does not change. So if they are forgiven, they
will always be forgiven. So what do we have to fear? We
look forward to those messengers that he sends who tell us about
the one messenger of the covenant, whose message was to take away
the sin of the world. We love to hear about what that
messenger has done because what he has done is forever. Because
he does not change. We love to hear and know that
he pulls us near. He does not change, so we will
always be near to him, no matter how we might feel. His unchangeableness
is some men and women's salvation. I thank our God that he does
not change, for if he could change, then he could, and I have to
say he would, destroy me. But he testifies himself, who
cannot lie, testifies to us. For I am the Lord, I change not,
Therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. What God do you
serve? Amen. Dear Lord, please go about
with us, dear Lord. Thank you for all that you've
done for us, dear Lord. Be with us as we go about