When Did God Change His Mind? (Part 3)

This is the third part in a series that asks the question, “Does God change his mind?” The purpose of writing this series is because many believers have been taught a mixture of concepts and doctrines so that their theology doesn’t work in real life. As a result much of what they have learned doesn’t produce the maturity God wants and expects, and our ability to change the culture is, for the most part, nonexistent. Instead of being salt and light to our culture, we are changed by the humanistic culture we live in.

Prayer exists is for two main purposes. One is to get to know and love God. The second is to make a difference in the world, whether in our own lives or in the lives of people we encounter. Prayer is meant to change things. It is not meant to be just a religious ritual that Christians do, it is meant as a co-labor with God for change.

When believers are told that God is “IMMUTABLE,” or doesn’t change his mind, we undermine the very notion that prayer changes things. This concept is taught in most bible colleges, or at least it was, and the idea behind it is that God is perfect and would never need to change anything he has done, is doing or is about to do. The main passages from which this doctrine comes are found in the book of Numbers.

Numbers 23:19

“God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent; has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?

This idea of God being “IMMUTABLE” is interpreted to mean the following:

“Immutability means God does not change in any way; he is unchanging and for that reason perfect in every way. Impassibility, a corollary to immutability, means God does not experience emotional change in any way, nor does God suffer. To clarify, God does not merely choose to be impassible; he is impassible by nature.

We must examine the context when we seek to understand Biblical text. In Numbers 23 God is dealing with the prophet Balaam who was hired to curse Israel for king Balak because people were afraid of Israel coming into the land of Canaan after being released from slavery in Egypt. Moses, who penned this quote, is letting king Balak know that God can’t be bought to bless a people one day and curse them the next like man does. God is saying he is not as twisted as man, who lies one day and tells the truth the next. This passage has nothing to do with God never having a new thought or new direction.

The second well used passage to support immutability is in the book of Malachi, where God speaks about coming to Israel for judgment like a refiners fire to purify wickedness. He makes this statement about the fact that his word is true and he is not twisted like so many who one day say one thing and another day say another. He will indeed come for judgment and people better get right or suffer for it.

Malachi 3:6

“For I, the LORD, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.

I don’t want to spend to much time on this weak concept because to any serious reader of scripture, who reads the word of God in the context it was written, will not build doctrine out of sand but on solid truth and reason.

There are many times in scripture when God changed his mind and did something different than what he had declared because someone did what he challenged them to do, or because they were in a right relationship with God and asked for something that was in line with the will and purpose of God. Moses is a major example of God changing his mind because one man asked him too.

Moses brings the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt after 430 years by the means of 10 major miracles, only to find that the people build a golden calf to worship while Moses was getting the 10 commandments on Mount Sinai. God is really mad, and tells Moses he is going to kill the whole lot of these rebellious people and build a nation out of Moses.

Exodus 32:9-10

The LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people. “Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation.”

If Moses was a self-centered man he could have looked at this opportunity as good fortune and been happy that he would be the next greatest man on earth. Instead, he is more concerned with God’s reputation with the rest of the world and so begs God not to kill them.

Exodus 32:12

“Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, ‘With evil intent He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your burning anger and change Your mind about doing harm to Your people.

Moses intercedes for these rotten people of Israel because God would be blamed as having evil intent before the rest of the world. Moses knew that God didn’t want to save Israel just for themselves but to influence and draw humanity to himself. Moses had the same heart as Jesus in that he was willing to suffer loss so that Father God is glorified. Look what the word of God says:

Exodus 32:14

So the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people.

These “Theologians” who believe in the doctrine that God is immutable claim this doesn’t mean what it says. They claim this wording is a thing called “Anthropomorphic,” assigning to God the attributes of man. They claim that in this instance God only used words we can relate to because we are too simple-minded to understand the complexity of God and his spoken word. In theology this term means the tendency to conceive God in human terms. To think of God, for instance, as literally shaking His fist, would be anthropomorphic.

It is unfortunate that we fall for theology that hinders our prayers instead of reading the scriptures with the help of the Holy Spirit. We follow traditions of man, or the so-called intellectuals who claim to say what God is not saying. We must cling to the word of God to motivate us to pursue the kind of prayer that moves mountains. That is what Jesus taught us.

I will be writing another piece in this series about how Jesus talked because I believe it is an important topic that could change how and why we pray.

Questions:

1) Do you realize you could impact the world around you if you trust God to answer your prayers? (Mt 7:7) Ask, Seek & Knock.

2) Jesus said we should believe him because of the works he did that speak of God changing things. (John 10:38) Trust that if you pray your Heavenly Father may change the circumstance you are asking for purely because you seek him first.

Believing what the word says,

Pastor Dale