All right, well, last week we started our study of chapter two of the Westminster Confession of Faith, and we will be continuing that tonight. Chapter two is probably, if I had to guess, will probably take us the longest out of any chapter to get through. Some of the chapters we can get through very easily, quickly in one lesson, but this one is just very incredibly meaty, so we'll just make a slight progress tonight and we'll focus our lesson on the immutability of God. Chapter two, paragraph one says that God is, among that whole list of attributes, it says God is immutable. And that's what we're gonna focus on. So first question we have to ask ourself is what does it mean for God to be immutable? This is not a word we just go around using in our ordinary everyday speech. A lot of the attributes are, we might say eternal. You know, we might say immense. These are words that the confession uses in this same clause, but we don't say immutable. Immutable is, like a lot of the ways that we actually end up describing God, it's a negative way of describing God. That doesn't mean it's a bad way of describing this scenario or that it describes something bad. It doesn't mean that either. But it means it describes God by explaining what he is not. So there are ways to describe someone by saying what they are not. And this is immutable. It means God is not mutable. Then, of course, we still have to say, well, what does that mean? What does not mutable mean? But mutable is a word and it means changeable or something that has the ability to change. That's what it means to be mutable. If something can change. So immutable, of course, another way to say it would be unchangeable. Changeless would not be quite as good because unchangeable really clearly says not only does God not change, but he cannot change. Our feelings change. The weather, as we've seen so very clearly over the last day and days and weeks, changes. Everything that's popular in one generation changes to the next generation, whether it's a music or what clothes we wear or what art we like to look at. Of course, the objective standards don't change, but what's popular changes. Bob Dylan told us the times even are changing. I think we can feel that from even probably some of our young people. that things have changed in our culture since we were born and since we were coming up. We change over time. This is a way that we are not like God. We all change. You can look at old photographs and see, oh, wow, I really changed from this year to that year. And it's not just our bodies that change. Hopefully our minds are changing too. Hopefully we're getting smarter over the years and getting wiser. Our perspectives change, our desires change. it seems like everything changes. And I think I've heard people reflect as they get near death, as they're elderly, that just in one sense, nothing changes at all. Everything stays the same. That's what the preacher said in Ecclesiastes. He said, there's nothing new under the sun. But in another sense, it seems like when you live your 80 years, that everything has changed since when you were coming up. So we live in this world that in some sense Things are constantly changing, but God is different. God does not change and God cannot change. He is unable to change. And this is an immense comfort to the believer that God does not change. He will never get any more powerful. He will never get any less powerful. He won't get any smarter or any less smart. He simply is, and this is related to his simplicity. to his eternality, God is. That's the most basic fact of Christianity before we even get to the good news of Jesus Christ. The author of Hebrews says that we have to believe that God is. That's step one. And that he rewards those that diligently seek him. God is. And that's in fact what God's covenant name means when he reveals it to Moses at the burning bush. Remember, God meets Moses at the burning bush, and God commands Moses. He says, I'm the God of your fathers, and I need you to lead my people out of slavery. Lead them out of Egypt so that they can rightly worship me. He said, you have to go to Pharaoh, you have to confront him, and you have to lead the children of Israel out. And Moses said, well, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they say to me, what is his name? Moses says, what shall I say to them? What am I gonna say to them when they ask what your name is? And God said to Moses, I am who I am. Thus he said to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to you. And that's what in the Hebrew Yahweh, that word or Jehovah means. It means I am. I am, so that's why when we have the different titles for God that we see throughout those early books of the Old Testament, like, Jehovah Rafa, Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah Nissi, these titles you may have heard before, preachers say, or you may have come across, what they might mean is Jehovah Jireh would mean, normally translated, the Lord provides. But what it really means is I am provides, because that word Lord is a sub in for Yahweh or Jehovah. I am is your provider. I am your provider. I am your standard. I am your healer. I am your helper. So it's all about God. God is the God who is, and he is present with his people. He is. Does anyone here, I was thinking about this as I was preparing. This wasn't in any of the things I studied, obviously, as you'll see in a minute. But does anyone here listen to Doug Wilson's podcast? David, you do? Okay, good. Oh, okay, Brittany. Okay, excellent. You've heard it before. There's not gonna be a quiz. Okay. It's a great podcast, and basically Doug discusses theology, he does book reviews, and then he talks about current events from a biblical perspective. And for those of you that have listened to the podcast before, have you ever paid attention to the opening song that kind of plays for just about 10 seconds before Doug starts talking? Okay, it's very, it's so applicable here. It's really quick clip. There's a little bit of instrumentality and then it's just like less than 10 words that you hear a singer sing before Doug starts talking. And this is how the song goes. Yeah, God, God don't never change. He's God. That's how it opens up. And then Doug starts talking. And I thought, that is a perfect way to describe the immutability of God. It's not grammatically correct, but it's theologically 100% accurate. God don't never change. He doesn't change. He can't change. He's God. and this fact, this immutability of God, it comes up in a lot of our songs, and we might not have thought about it before. Sometimes, you know, we sing songs, whether it's songs on the radio or songs from the hymnal, and if we're being frank, we don't always think about what the words mean, and we don't always realize the weight that they carry. I think it might've been, I could be misremembering, it might've been R.W. Dale said that nevertheless, songs are the most powerful teaching tools that we have in the church, He said, I don't care who writes the theology, let me write the hymn books, and I'll tell you what the theology will be in one generation. So the hymns are so powerful for us, and this concept of immutability comes up in some of our greatest hits. Great is thy faithfulness, that first verse. Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father. There is no shadow of turning with thee. Thou changest not thy compassions, they fail not As thou hast been, thou forever wilt be. That's an entire verse about the immutability of God, that God cannot change. Probably, we're getting close to Reformation Day, as you all know, October 31st. It's been a little over 500 years since Martin Luther nailed those theses to the Wittenberg Chapel door. The undoubted greatest hit to come out of the Reformation is A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. Listen to these words. Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing. We're not the right man on our side, the man of God's own choosing. Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus it is he, Lord Sabaoth his name, which mean Lord of hosts, Lord of the armies. So that means Lord Sabaoth his name from age to age. the same, and he must win the battle. That's the comforting part. We have to have the right person on our side, because if we don't have the one person on our side that can help us, we will lose to Satan. We will lose to the Prince of Darkness Grim. We have to have the right man on our side. Who is that right man? It's the one who has never changed. He's always been the same, and that's a comfort to us, because we can look at how he defeated Satan in the past, and that gives us great confidence to how he will defeat him in the future. The two proof texts which the Westminster Divines cite for their assertion in chapter 2 that God is immutable are Malachi 3.6, where God says this, I, the Lord Yahweh, do not change. Therefore, you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. If I wasn't changing God, you would be consumed. We could almost infer from that. And then James 1.17, the Divines also cite, The Apostle James says, 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. And I think that's got to be where the hymn writer got that phrase, there is no shadow of turning with thee. Louis Burkhoff writes that the immutability of God is that perfection of God by which he is devoid of all change, not only in his being, but also in his perfections and in his purposes and promises. So Berkhoff says, and many, many theologians will echo him and preceded him in saying this, it's not just God's being. or his whatness, what God is that doesn't change, but it's how he acts that doesn't change. Puritan pastor Thomas Watson puts it more simply, but I think just as powerfully when he writes this, God is unchangeable in his nature and in his decree. Not only can God's nature not change, but His decree doesn't change. This is very important for us as we're approaching the study of theology. And it's a strength of Reformed theology that we assert that God's decree does not change. I'm not only referring to predestination. That's a lot of times people reduce Reformed theology to, oh, you believe in predestination. in the entire framework of understanding covenant theology, that God is one God, that we have one faith, that we serve one Lord, that we are one people, because God does not change. He's not changed from Old Testament to New Testament, for instance. So it's not just his essence, his being, the what of God that doesn't change, but his plans, his purposes, his will, his intentions, his promises, none of these things change. Like I said, this is a great comfort to us. I'm certain, even in a room this size, we're not an immense crowd, but I am certain that at least every adult in this room, and perhaps many of the children also, have had an agreement with someone before, where someone promised you that they would do something for you, or where you promised someone else that you would do something for them. John and David, you've probably heard this particular one. I promise I will put that check in the mail today. Or all the parents I think have probably heard, I will make sure to clean my room before you get home, mom or dad. I'll be there at five o'clock on the dot waiting for you. You can guarantee it. This is the last time I'll ever ask for this one privilege. Just one more time, please. And then I'll never ask again, I promise. Whatever the commitment may be, it doesn't matter. We could name a million different types of commitments. Someone has promised you something before, and you've promised someone else something before. And in the end, it turned out that a promise did not get fulfilled. We've all been in this situation, and if you haven't been in this situation, just wait. You will at some point in your life be in a situation where a promise doesn't get fulfilled, and someone gets left hanging. Sometimes those consequences are pretty extreme. But God is not that way. God is not like us who's unable or unwilling to keep our promises. His promises are absolutely unchanging and absolutely sure. They're so sure that it's as if they've already come to pass sometimes in the Bible. Paul says that we have been glorified. We haven't been glorified. We won't be glorified until we're in heaven. The reason he says that we've been glorified already is I think what he's saying there is it is so absolutely certain that you will be glorified, that it's as if God already sees you in that state. He no longer looks at you and sees you as a sinner. He sees you as one of his glorious son through daughters. But his promises are absolutely certain. He will save all of his people. He will give each of his elect children new hearts. He will conquer the nations. He will make his enemies a footstool. He will come again in glory. He will usher those that are found dressed in his righteousness into eternal happiness. And nothing that anyone can do can change a single one of those things. We have no power whatsoever to thwart God's plans. As Watson writes, when he's writing about the immutability of God, he writes, once elected, forever elected. Once justified, never unjustified. Said if God has decreed something, it can't be undone. Think about the story in Esther, I think, or Daniel, now I'm misremembering, but if a Persian king put something into writing, it was unable to be revoked. You could come up with a new law that kind of made a counter effect or a counterbalance, but once it was set down in the king's seal, it was unable even by the king to be revoked. That's just a dim reflection of how certain and sure God's word is when it goes forth. It's unable to be revoked. God's promises are irrevocable. We've been guaranteed by him that he will fulfill all his promises. Psalm 33 tells us this. He spoke and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast. Or as he says in Isaiah 46, 10, my purpose will stand and I will do all that I please. My purpose will stand. So it's not just his being, it's his purposes too. God will not change essence or will. But just, and feel free to interrupt me if you have a question. I'll have a couple at the end, I think, but just if something's confusing or you wanna add a note of clarification, just throw your hand up or call out. I think just like we discussed though last week about God not having a body or parts or passions, all this can sometimes get confused in our minds. We can get a little, unclear. God's never unclear in his word, but our interpretation can be unclear sometimes. Because we know there are definitely places in scripture where it says, or at least seems to say, that God changed his mind. That he regretted his decisions. That he changes his plans. Can anyone think of an instance where something like that happened? Yes. Absolutely. That's right. That's absolutely right. Yeah. Exodus 32. That's right. There's more. That's right. I've regretted that I've made these people. That's really strong. And King James says that God repented in his heart because he had made people. is not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Oh yes, his discussion with Abraham. Should I tell Abraham what I'm gonna go do? I'm gonna destroy this whole town. And Abraham says, oh no, please God, if there's just this many righteous people, will you spare Sodom and Gomorrah? Okay, I'll spare it if there's that many. God's responding to something. It seems like he's changing. So what are we to make of all this? And there's more examples as well. What are we to make of all this? Thomas Watson, again, is very helpful. If you haven't read his book, A Body of Divinity, it's one of the most easy to read Puritans and one of the most potent gifts that we receive from that era, A Body of Divinity. He writes this, but is not God said to repent? This seems to be a change in his decree. The Lord repented of the evil that he said he would do unto them. Thomas Watson's actually quoting Exodus 32 right there about God, saying that he's gonna kill all of his people because they were worshiping the golden calf, and then Moses pleads with God, and after Moses is pleading, God relents. He does not pour out his wrath on Israel. But Watson continues, repentance is attributed to God figuratively. He is not a man that he should repent. There may be a change in God's work, but not in his will. He may will a change, but not change his will. God may change his sentence, but not his decree. A king may cause sentence to be passed upon a malefactor, or a bad guy, we might say, someone who's done evil. A king may cause a sentence to be passed upon a malefactor whom he intends to save. So God threatened destruction to Nineveh, but the people of Nineveh repenting, God spared them. Here God changed his sentence, but not his decree. It was what had lain in the womb of his purpose from eternity. God's will, in this case, this last example that Watson brings up as a case study for what about God changing? God's will was always that he would save Nineveh. His will was that he would always save Israel. He had not promised to destroy these people like he has promised to save us. God has assured us over and over through his word, because you don't want to read something like that to Exodus 32 or reading in Jonah 3 and 4 and think, God also said he would save all those that call upon his name. Can he change that too? Because if he changed this thing, maybe he can change that thing. But God has assured us over and over and over through his word, through his prophecies, through signs and wonders, through the blood of Christ, through the sending of the Holy Spirit, who is, as Paul says, a guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory, a guarantee of our inheritance. God has showed us through all these ways that he has promised that he will save us. He did not promise destruction to Nineveh, for instance. He did tell them that based on how they were living, that is exactly where they were headed, but he did this so that they would repent. God uses threatenings in some cases to draw his people to repentance. And some might say, well, it sounds like you're just doing some fancy footwork here and you're wanting to just make it sound nice and happy and everything works out good in the end. How do we know? And I'm gonna dial into Nineveh here. Our lesson isn't about Jonah right now, but I want us to focus a moment because as we're reading our Bibles, and as we're also encountering people in the culture, so-called, or unbelievers who think that they know more about the Bible than we do, and anyone who's talked to a lot of unbelievers knows you'll run into those people eventually. This is gonna come up. People will say that God has contradicted himself, or people will want to cause you to doubt, or maybe you're reading your Bible and you will maybe start to doubt, can I really trust God if he changes like this? So I want us to dial in here for a minute on Nineveh. How do we know that God really always planned to save the Ninevites? How do we know that? First off, just like how God's word refers to God's hand or face or nostrils or mouth or back or so on and so forth. Yet we know God doesn't have a body. So God's word at times talks about him repenting or changing his mind. But this is what theologians call an accommodation. This is what some of us heard yesterday. I think, John, you spoke about this briefly yesterday. an accommodation is God stepping down to our level, to our feeble minds and speaking in a way that we can understand, even if it isn't the most precise or technical way that he could speak. This doesn't mean he lied. It doesn't mean he communicated incorrectly. He just communicated in a way that we could understand. And we all instinctively understand and know that we can communicate truly in a way that accommodates to a lower level of understanding. One theologian described the difference between accommodation and lying by showing two different ways that a parent can answer the question, mommy, where do babies come from? I thought this was really helpful. So your little children ask at some point, where do babies come from? The theologian, the belly, that's right, the theologian said, that some parents might say that a stork brought a new baby to the mommy and the daddy. He says, well, that's downright lying. But, he said, the parents could respond to the inquiring child by saying that little children come from God and that an angel first places them as very tiny creatures under the mommy's heart for protection. And when they are big enough, they come out and the mommy can then hold them in her arms. And this, the theologian described, it's not scientific, it's not precise, it's not technical, but it communicates the essence of the truth of conception in a way that a child can understand. And he says the difference between the supposed accommodation, which is really lying, and faithful accommodation that's really true, is whether or not you have to unlearn something when you come to a fuller understanding. The child who was sheltered and not exposed to scientific truth like this and was told that a stork came and gave their parents their little brother or little sister. When he opens up a biology textbook in high school or when he goes to college or whatever, he's gonna have to do unlearning. He's gonna have to unlearn the lies that he was told. But the child who was told about the angel placing the baby under the mommy's heart doesn't have to unlearn anything. They just over time grow into a fuller understanding of what was going on there in the process of conception. So it's when scripture seems to indicate, then God changes his mind that the same thing is happening. Does an angel literally come to a mommy and place a child under her heart physically? No, that's not. That's not exactly how babies are created. So also does God literally and truly in the way we normally think of, does he repent? Well, no, not in the way we normally would use that word about ourselves. That's scripture just indicating that something's going on that we have a hard time understanding, and God is accommodating language that we know so that we can understand what he's saying. And then over time, just like that child grows into that full understanding of how a baby is created over time, Over time, either in this life through deeper study of his word and through prayer and through growth and maturity, or maybe just in the life to come, over time we will grow into a more full and detailed understanding of all those instances of accommodation in scripture. Some of them we'll get clarity of in this life. We'll understand, ah, that's what it means when it says God repented. And some of them perhaps we won't totally understand until the life to come, and that's okay. But back to our Nineveh narrative. So one way we know that God's will was always to spare the Ninevites is because he's accommodating and we know that accommodation occurs places in the Bible. But more specifically to Nineveh, how does this narrative teach us that God's will is immutable? We know that God's will was always for the Ninevites to repent and not to be destroyed for at least three reasons. First, because his judgment against them was delayed. Does anyone remember the sermon that Jonah preached? Does anyone wanna take a whack What Jonah said to the Ninevites, it's a one sentence sermon. He said, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. If it was God's will that Nineveh would truly be overthrown, why would he give them a 40 day warning? We might ask. What was the purpose of the 40 days? Except to give the people an opportunity to repent, to turn from their sins and to turn to the Lord. Now that's not a powerful enough argument on its own. It's just one piece here. Secondly, we know that God's will was always for Nineveh to repent and that his threat of destruction was conditional because of the actions and words of Jonah himself. This is powerful. After hearing the preaching of Jonah, that God was going to destroy the Ninevites, they believed God and they turned from their sinfulness and they put their hope in the Lord. And God's word says this in Jonah 3 and 4, then God saw their works that they turned from their evil way and God relented from the disaster that he had said he would bring upon them and he did not do it. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry. So he prayed to the Lord Yahweh and said, ah, Lord Yahweh, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish, for I know that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness, one who relents from doing harm. Therefore now, oh Lord Yahweh, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. And this tells us about God's immutability here. Jonah gets angry that God relented of his wrath against Nineveh. And he tells God essentially, this is why I ran away to begin with, because I knew this is exactly what was going to happen. And why did I know it? Because I know the type of God you are and the way you work and how you've communicated in your word. And in no uncertain terms, I know that you are a God who relents, who is gracious and merciful, who is slow to anger, who does not do harm to those who call on you. Jonah says, I knew, I knew that you would have mercy on these people. And I didn't want you to have mercy on these people. So that's why I ran away. Now I came, I did what you said, and look, you still did what disappointed me. So it's kind of ridiculous that Jonah is upset that the Ninevites repented, but listen to this. He preached a message that the Ninevites were going to be destroyed. And he also says he knew full well that that wasn't going to happen. It's interesting. Jonah doesn't think that the Ninevites are not going to be destroyed because God changes. Jonah says the exact opposite. He said, I knew they weren't going to be destroyed because you don't change. Because you're the type of God who relents over destruction. You're the type of God who gives opportunities for repentance. And because Jonah knew about the constancy of God's will, about the unchangeable nature of God being a God who's slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, Jonah said, I knew that if I came and preached this message of destruction, the exact opposite thing would happen because it was your will all along to bring the Ninevites to repentance. So he didn't wanna have any part of it. God's will did not change one bit and Jonah knew it. And finally, that was the second reason. We know that God's will is immutable from this story where it looks very much like it wasn't, like his will changed because Jonah is clearly saying he knew that that was not God's will all along. But finally, and this is the clearest, each of these arguments gets stronger. This is the clearest reason why we know God really did not change His mind with Nineveh, but only appeared to. It's because of what God's Word tells us elsewhere. And I'm not talking about all the places in the Bible where we have isolated verses saying things like, God doesn't change, He's not a man that He should change. You know, there's a lot of things like that. But God even speaks to this exact type of situation. This exact situation. God says this in Jeremiah, if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it. God says, if I say I'm going to destroy a nation, and if that nation concerning which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I had intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it. Now, therefore, say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Thus says the Lord Yahweh, Behold, I am shaping disaster against you and devising a plan against you. Return every one of you from his evil way and amend your ways and your deeds. Is that further proof that God changes? No. God's saying, ahead of any particular situation with Nineveh or another foreign country at all, He's speaking to Judah and their sinful ways, but He's laying out to them, this is how I act. This is my consistent nature and character. This is my will for nations. If I tell one of them that I'm going to destroy them, my will is that perhaps they will be brought to repentance. And if they are brought to repentance, I won't destroy them. So what's happening with Nineveh here is not God wanting to destroy people and then them surprising him with their repentance and God relenting. No, his plan all along was, I am going to say that you're going to be destroyed. It's just like a parent who says, if you don't amend your ways, you're going to be disciplined in X, Y, or Z way. If they amend their ways though, I'll relent of this destruction. Now God doesn't say this directly to Nineveh through Jonah in the sermon, but that's okay because we already have it laid out in God's word that God has showed us that this is how he acts. His character is consistent. And this is just a case study proving that this is how God is immutable. Now these are heavy things. These are things that in our heads, they're not confusing in God's word, of course, but in our heads, we can still be confused by them. But we can trust that God has an unchanging will. And He communicates to us what His unchanging will is in His word. His immutable will is that if this people will repent, He will not destroy them. When I first started planning our lesson for tonight, I wanted to get through more than one attribute, because there's so many, but I think we're gonna have to wind it down here just on immutability. But I do have a couple questions. Well, first, does anyone have any questions? I wanna take any questions anyone has, and I'll try to answer them, though this is a difficult doctrine. What was that passage written in? Jeremiah, maybe 29 or 32. I don't have the reference written, but I did type it directly over from God's word. Yeah, Jeremiah though. Any other questions about God's immutability or, or how that works out. There are maybe four passages in the Bible that talk about God wanting all men to come to repentance. And would you consider that also within the category of accommodation, something in God's emotional life that he's describing for us in a way that we can understand it, even though we know that his purpose in election is the controlling ultimate factor? Yeah, it could be an instance of accommodation, just like the Jonah narrative could. I'm not even a hundred percent convinced that all these instances are accommodation, it's just we know that God communicates in those ways. Sometimes it's hard to tell exactly when he's doing more accommodating, and not all of Scripture is accommodation to some extent, because we can't understand God otherwise. But I think the way that I would resolve that tension, or at least the way that I tend to think about it, I haven't studied it a ton on its own, is that God does desire for all peoples to repent. And he will have, on the final day, both on one hand corporately, all the nations will be submitted to Christ, and individually at the throne, there will be believers from all tribes and tongues and nations. So I think there's a sense in which God's intentional will is for the world to be saved. And there's a sense in which the whole world will be saved. Just like we know in Romans, it says that all Israel will be saved. And we know that's true, but there are still many tears in Israel and the church. So I think that would be still a language question of how do we understand all men? But it could also be that there is a revealed aspect of God's will and there is a secret aspect of God's will. And the book of life, who is elect and who's not elect, is hidden from us. It is a secret aspect of God's will. Not a single one of us has privy to that. We don't have any right to go look into God's decreed of will, decree of election. So I think it also could model for us how we're to approach other men. We don't only preach to those we think that are elect. We preach because we know that God's word can save anyone. God's word is powerful to save anyone. And then the election, the truth of election, that God will save a particular people should comfort us in knowing that if we preach to people, we know that through that means God is going to save whom he will. Um, so there's a general desire that God has that the world be saved, of course. And then there's also, I think God wants us to have a desire as, as Paul says in Romans nine, you know, he, he has this, this desire so much. He's in constant anguish because his kinsmen, according to the flesh have a zeal, but not according to knowledge. And they're turning away from the living God. And he says, I could wish myself even a curse and cut off from Christ for the sake of you. So I think that just like Jesus' blood was sufficient for the whole world, and he did die for the redemption of the entire cosmos, in a sense, I think we should also follow our maker and then have a desire for all men to be saved. But that's like a few different facets to answer that question and none of them answers it perfectly. So there's some mystery there. And I think there's some mystery in this topic too, immutability. It's confusing to me. God's word is not confusing. I get confused when I read about God repenting. That's a very strange concept to our ears. But I think God's trying to get us to understand things. So that's a good question. Does anyone have a better answer or a follow-up or a piggyback question from John? I'll only just mention one thing. I may have said this, at least in my family, before. Scott Oliphant, who occupies the same chair at Westminster, Philadelphia that Van Til did, and then John Frank, and now it's Scott Oliphant. Wow, rich pedigree. Yeah, reading his introduction to one of Van Til's books, I forget which one, but it was a long introduction. And he calls these instances covenant characteristics of God. Covenant characteristics. And it's the same idea as accommodation. But he's saying that God condescends to enter into covenant with man. And we can't fully, it's just what you taught tonight, we can't understand what's behind the idea that God is sovereign over all things, does no violence to the will of the creature, his decrees of election. We can't put all those pieces together, so God describes himself in ways that that we can understand him as an actor in the story. And so they seem like characteristics of God, but they're only covenantal characteristics. He doesn't really change. His mind doesn't really change. I just thought that was interesting. No, I think that makes complete sense. I haven't run across that term. That makes a lot of sense. I think that's a good Good way to think about it too. Another related thing to that is the idea of what's called counterfactuals. Counterfactuals. A counterfactual is something that is true, but doesn't correspond to reality as it happens. So the instance would be, John mentioned he liked the Texas caviar. You know, I could say, if John ate a gallon of Texas caviar, he would get sick. That's true, but it doesn't correspond to reality because he didn't eat a gallon of Texas Caviar and he probably will never eat a gallon of Texas Caviar. So there are these things that God says sometimes that are true, but don't come to pass. Yep, 40 days and then it will be overthrown. Go ahead Moses. Yeah, exactly. That's a perfect example. I'd never connected that. But yeah, Jesus says, you know, even if the heavens and earth pass away. You know, my word won't pass away. Now, there will be a sense that the heavens and the earth will be transformed on the final day. Yeah, but he's saying in this life ain't gonna happen. You know, don't think that I've come to abolish the law because more sooner could all of this have been destroyed than I would abolish the law. That's right. Well, I do have a question for us that I wasn't able to get to this in the lecture really, but if y'all are open to it, I'd love to talk for a minute. Why might the doctrine of God's immutability be an important, very important doctrine, especially for us today in our current cultural context? Somebody says God can change. Thank you. say that his word doesn't apply to today? Absolutely. That's absolutely right. Well, that was just Old Testament, you know, or, well, we're more enlightened now. God was condescending to a different type of man. We have evolved past that. What particular issues might people want to bring that up about today? Think of certain ethical, cultural issues, hot button issues today that people would want to... Homosexuality, big time, big time. Women pastors, big time. I mean, otherwise, Orthodox theologians will really, really, without saying these words, they will deny the immutability of God on women pastors. And then homosexuality, I mean, yeah, I think at that point, you're almost outside of Orthodoxy completely, but absolutely. You say, well, you know, that was for a different time, you know? You know, God is, or, really twisting the doctrine of revelation. I've seen on some church signs before, God is still speaking today, written all rainbow letters. You know, well, God had a word for this time, but now today he has a different word. And of course, women can be pastors. They were the first witnesses to the resurrection or whatever else, you know, people might want to say. Those are two really big ones. So the doctrine of God's immutability is very important for ethics, and it's very important engaged in our culture, but also as we try to understand God's word within our own lives and within our church. relationships. There are a lot of churches today, especially in the South, Bible-believing churches, evangelical churches, churches that I would be happy in a lot of ways with people going to, that believe something called dispensationalism. And I think dispensationalism comes close to denying the immutability of God. It depends on the form. There are some dispensationalists that are solid on this, I think, but they're inconsistently solid. And then there are some that really do deny immutability. Does anyone know what dispensationalism is? And we don't have time to get into it much, but a quick answer. Yeah, that God kind of operates differently in his relationship between himself and people at different times. That the Old Testament was a essentially different time and way of operating an economy between God and man than the New Testament. But in Reformed theology, we absolutely deny that. We say that God's always saved people the same way. He's always worked in his people in the same manner. You know, there's never been a time where you could get to Christ differently, get to salvation differently. God's never had a different essential will for his people, for internal holiness. He has had different circumstances that he puts us all in. And we have different, I mean, even today we could say everyone has their own, you know, God has an individual will for everyone's life that's different in some sense from everyone else's. But as a general prescriptive will for his people, God does not change. Actually, Ian Hamilton once, I heard him say, someone asked him, why do you believe in infant baptism? I've never heard anyone give the same answer as Ian Hamilton did. His answer was the immutability of God. God doesn't change. Children have always been central to God's people, to God's plan of redemption, and to God's worship. God doesn't change, so. Why would I say now in the new or better covenant the children would not be brought in? Interesting. Well, any more questions? I didn't mean to lecture more there. Benjamin, you have a question? God can never change his plans. That's right, God can never change his plans. You were listening, good.