“For I am the LORD, I change not;” Malachi 3:6a (KJV)

This is a really important scripture to remember when we think about the Attributes of God…

“Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.” (Exodus 34:6-7 NASB)

Moses, we read, “…made haste to bow low toward the earth and worship” when He heard the Lord utter who He was…

He is still the same, He does not change…

His Character is Immutable…

Unchangable…

“For I am the LORD, I change not;” Malachi 3:6a (KJV)

He does not act differently now to how He has always acted in the affairs of men…

When men sin God sets Himself against them…

“But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”” (James 4:6 NIV)

How does God set Himself against those who oppose Him and themselves?

He will do anything He can to get their attention so that they will let go of their sin and turn back to Him…

He does not want them to perish, rather to turn back to Him and live…

But, if they will not repent and turn back to Him He will “turn up the heat” via acts of Judgement to encourage them in their misery and in their despondancy to turn back to Him…

He loves us too much to let us continue blindly in our sin – whether we know Him or whether we do not – and so His Acts of Judgment give a strong “wake up call” to all who will hear them that He will act and that He will not be silent…

Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” (Genesis 6:3 NASB)

God’s Judgement is His “striving with man” – which is actually His Mercy or His Kindness which is trying to bring us to repentance…

God’s Ultimate Judgement is the fire of the lake of fire and brimestone which was prepared for the devil and his angels (who have not been offered – and will not be offered – redemption) which will also be shared by all those who do not repent and confess Jesus as Lord before they, “die once, and after that to face judgment” (Hebrews 9:27b NIV) as the scripture says…

The scripture makes it clear that those who have not believed, “are condemned already” and that “the wrath of God abides – present, continuous tense – on them”…

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. “But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” (John 3:16-21 NASB) 

“He who comes from above is above all, he who is of the earth is from the earth and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all. What He has seen and heard, of that He testifies; and no one receives His testimony. He who has received His testimony has set his seal to this, that God is true. For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God; for He gives the Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand. He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” (John 3:31-36 NASB)

The Lord is free to Judge men in this condition in any way He feels free to choose, it is solely His Mercy which restrains Him from doing so but His Mercy is not deserved by men in this fallen condition…

They deserve Wrath and – scripture tells us – that even for those of us who have had our sins forgiven by the Blood of Jesus,

“It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22-23 KJV)

It is the Mercy of God which restrains Judgement right here and now on the people who dwell on the face of the earth…

When God said to Adam and Eve, “On the day you eat of it you will surely die”, I believe He meant both spiritually and physically but instead of them dying both spiritually and physically on that day the Lord sacrificed an animal from which He took the skins and made them clothes to indicate that a sacrifice had been made “life for life” for their sin to enable them to keep living physically, i.e. the Lord had Mercy on them physically to foreshadow the Ultimate Sacrifice which would be made for them spiritually to save them from eternal death in the lake of fire and brimestone prepared for the devil and his demons…

There is nothing more awesome than the Mercy of God but we must not forget that we all – even those who are covered by the Blood of Jesus – deserve to die physically every time we sin…

This is the way that it is…

God hates sin…

The fact that so many of us are not struck dead every time we sin is testament to the Mercy of God and that alone…

We debate whether God can do this or whether God can do that…

God can do whatever He pleases – scripture tells us this…

“All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: “What have you done?”” (Daniel 4:35 NIV)

“All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, But He does according to His will in the host of heaven And among the inhabitants of earth; And no one can ward off His hand Or say to Him, ‘What have You done?'” (Daniel 4:35 NASB)

So we see that God is Immutable and yet He relents and shows Mercy…

We see that mankind – under sin – is already under the Judgement of God – already under the Wrath of God…

Only sheltering under the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ can suffice as a remedy for this situation and even if we are sheltering under the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ any sin which we commit is actually worthy of the dead penalty in the eyes of God…

This is the way it is…

We have not seen the Lord for the Holy Lord that He is…

He is so Holy…

He can not tolerate sin…

He has “winked at sin” in the past but now He is “commanding all men everywhere to repent”…

Can the Judgements of God be physical?

God can and will and does use whatever method He knows will get through to those whom He is trying to get the attention of…

He will use physical death of loved ones, e.g. the first born of Egypt, He will use pestilence, plague, sickness, death, starvation, drought, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes, typhoons, wars, riots, looting, persecution, confiscation of property, loss of land, loss of assets, loss of income, loss of security, He will use whatever He needs to use to get our attention and to open our eyes to the fact that we have not been loving the Lord our God – and He is “our God” to each and every one of us whether we know it or not – with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our strength and with all our minds and that we have not been loving our neighbours as we love ourselves…

No matter how well we know Him – and even when the Lord has allowed the devil to take these things from us – as was the case with Job – there were still lessons to be learnt by the most righteous man in all the earth at that point in time and there are still lessons – deeper cleansing – which are to be learnt by us today in this same situation…

“See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven. And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, “YET ONCE MORE I WILL SHAKE NOT ONLY THE EARTH, BUT ALSO THE HEAVEN.” This expression, “Yet once more,” denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire.” (Hebrews 12:25-29 NASB)