Living the Promises of God
Faith Service Worship Vision
Session 5
8 February 2011
A change of mind or a mistake? There may be times when you find it difficult to reconcile God’s truth to your own opinion or worldview, God’s truth is eternal, it does not change, our understanding of the truth does change as we allow God to work in our hearts and minds. These sessions are not about opinion, they are about learning truth, the truth contained in the Bible, together we are going to focus on how we apply God’s truth, black & white in a grey world. To set godly priorities, grow in Christian character and live according to God’s standards so that we are a living witness to others. Notes from previous sessions are available from the Bible Study Section of www.ashingdonelim.co.uk.
When was the last time you changed your opinion about someone or something? Was the result of your change of mind good or bad? Did you change your mind because your original opinion was wrong or did circumstance force you to act in a different way? 1 Samuel 15:29 says that God “does not lie or change His mind; for He is not a human being, that He should change His mind.”
Can God make a mistake?
It is probably safe to assume that everyone has done something wrong or made a mistake in life that has caused regret. We all make mistakes. Some more serious than others. People in Noah’s day, however, couldn’t have cared less about their sin. They were totally corrupted by their sinfulness.
The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD regretted that He had made human beings on the earth, and His heart was deeply troubled. Genesis 6:5-6 (NIV)
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The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and He saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. 6 So the Lord was sorry He had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke His heart. Genesis 6:5-6 (NLT) So it must have been pretty serious when it says in Genesis 6:7-8: And the Lord said, “I will wipe this human race I have created from the face of the earth. Yes, and I will destroy every living thing—all the people, the large animals, the small animals that scurry along the ground, and even the birds of the sky. I am sorry I ever made them.” 8 But Noah found favour with the Lord. 5
Genesis 6:7 says God was sorry that He had made man. So did God make a mistake? As we have discussed in previous studies, some of the
promises of God are conditional. God makes certain promises to us based upon our response to Him, for example “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved”. The promise indicates that if we believe in Jesus we will receive what He promised. If we don’t then we are under different promises and we are not saved. When we change our response to Him the outcomes change for us. So from a human perspective it can seem to us like God changes His mind.
The results of sin have always been death, (Romans 6:23) and all of us are born under the curse of spiritual death, we don’t automatically have a personal relationship with God, and we are also under the curse of physical death in that we will eventually die, and eternal death in that God makes it clear that without Christ we are bound for hell (John 3:17-18. Revelation 20:15). A moment before we trusted in Jesus as Savour we were headed for hell and the next moment heaven. God changes His mind about sending us to hell when we believe in Christ. The promises are solid and unchanging, as is the character of God. He is immutable or unchangeable.
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