God Changes Not
Scripture: Malachi 3:6Devotional Series: By His Stripes
Teaching: By His Stripes pt. 2 (SUN_AM 2024-03-17) by Pastor Star R Scott
One of the surest things in this study of whether or not healing is in the Atonement is whether or not God is immutable. Is He the same yesterday, today, and forever? When He makes the declaration, “For I am the Lord, I change not” (Malachi 3:6), He is what He has ever been. It is in God’s nature to make things whole; amen? It is God’s nature. He doesn’t respond naturally but to make things whole, to make things right. We have talked about the second law of thermodynamics and how the fact there is a deterioration, as things continue to go on, and about the idea that what God created, that He called good, those things were perfect in the origin of God’s creation. His intention would have continued if there had not been sin. Sin is the cause. Sin is what brought the deterioration of the relationship with God and His man. Sin is what brought the destruction of the world.
Not only did Adam and all mankind die in his rebellious position, but this world was put under judgment. It reels today like a drunk man; amen? It’s going to have to have a restoration, a baptism that will make all things new, hallelujah! That’s why we stand. I’ve always stood very firmly—these people that are caught up with the ecosystem—God has created this system and it will stop in His time. Man will not speed it up, nor will he deter it, so don’t worry about it; amen? It’s in the hands of God. Every individual soul is in the hands of God. We can’t do anything to increase our natural life by one minute. I hate to disappoint you, but with all your working out, sweating and all of that, then you drop dead, and the old fat guy next to you lives on for another ten years. It’s always ironic, I can’t remember the guy’s name now, but he started the jogging fad; the dude died of a heart attack. All his fat brothers and sisters buried him. Bodily exercise profits, we know that, so I’m sure not advocating the other, but I’m making a point. It’s in God’s hands; amen?
In this whole process of the deterioration of God’s creation, that He called good prior to sin, very good, He initiated the preservation of man through the great plan of redemption in Jesus Christ and made all of the provision up until that day when Jesus cried from the cross, “It is finished.” What is God’s concern for His creation? What is the involvement of God in your life and mine with our physical being? If it’s lawful to call Christianity a religion, there are no other religions that deal with the resurrection or the reconstruction or the reestablishing of the physical man.There’s an old gospel song, “I’ll Have a New Body, Praise the Lord, I’ll Have a New Life.” God is concerned with your body. He said our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost, so we are to treat them with respect and honor; amen? That pertains to our morality, and, I believe, our physicality in trying to honor God’s creation by taking care of it. As it pertains to healing, somehow man has come to the place of diminishing the body—almost like a Gnostic thought that said, “This is just matter, it is going to be destroyed. It has no purpose other than destruction because of its corruption, so eat, drink, be merry; tomorrow you die.” God speaks differently about this and says that He is, then, the God who heals us.