God Changed His Mind

Can our prayers change God's sovereign plan? The answer should be … of course not. When God sovereignly declares that He is going to do something, all of the prayers in the world aren't going to change God’s mind. God not only ordains certain ends, He also ordains the means to those ends, and part of the process He uses to bring His sovereign will to pass are the prayers of His people.

And so we are to pray.

In Numbers Chapter 14 … it appears that Moses changed the mind of God.

There's one sense in which it seems God is changing His mind, and there's another sense in which the Bible says God never changes His mind because God is omniscient. He knows all things from the beginning, and He is immutable. He is unchanging. There's no shadow of turning with Him.

But look at the conversation Moses and God have …
Verse 12 … the Lord says … "I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them …"
Verse 19 … Moses pleads … "Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people …"
Verse 20 … "And the LORD said, I have pardoned according to thy word …"

God knows what Moses is going to say to Him before Moses even opens his mouth to plead for his people. Then after Moses actually pleads for mercy for the people, does God suddenly change His mind? God doesn't have any more information than He had a moment before. Nothing has changed as far as God's knowledge or His appraisal of the situation.

What words or argument did Moses use that would have possibly caused God to change His mind? What we have here is one of … the mysteries of providence … whereby God ordains not only the ends of things that come to pass but also the means of those things.

God sets forth principles in the Bible where He gives threats of judgment to motivate His people to repentance. Sometimes He spells out specifically, "But if you repent, I will not carry out the threat." He doesn’t always add that qualifier, but it's there. This is one of those instances. It was tacitly understood that God threatens judgment upon these people, but if somebody pleads for them in a priestly way as Moses did, then God will give grace and mercy rather than justice. That is what's behind this perceived changing of God's mind.

Is God confused, stumbling through all the different options … Should I do this? Should I not do that? And does He decide upon one course of action and then think … "Well, maybe that’s not such a good idea after all, and change His mind?"

Obviously not. God is omniscient; God is all wise. God is eternal in His perspective and in His full knowledge of everything.

So we don't change God’s mind.

But prayer changes things. It changes us.

There are times in which God waits for us to ask for things in prayer … because His plan is that we work with Him in the process of bringing His will to pass here on earth.

And so we pray.

Nothing Comes By Chance

Isaiah 14:24 … "The LORD of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand …"

"… hath sworn …" God is often represented as making use of an oath to denote a strong confirmation, the absolute certainty of what he utters.

"… as I have thought …" God has shaped and drawn the form and image in His own mind as to how it should be.

"… so shall it come to pass …" His thoughts, words and will shall all be accomplished as He has designed or intended them to be; it shall come to pass in His time as everything is that is determined by the Lord.

"… as I have purposed, so shall it stand …" God’s sovereign promises never fail; this shows that nothing comes by chance, but everything … is … as it is purposed of God; and that everything comes to pass and stands which He has resolved as it proceeds from His thoughts of goodness and love.

Isaiah 46:10-11 …"Declaring the end from the beginning … saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure … yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it."

If God has designed, intended and counseled within Himself; the meaning here concerning His conduct is that … He does all things according to the counsel of His own will; and if He has spoken it … each of His purposes shall be accomplished and stand firm, sure, and unalterable no matter what man's thoughts, devices or ways of opposition may be.

Isaiah 55:8-9 … "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts."

Malachi 3:6 …"For I am the LORD, I change not …"

Change supposes imperfection … and from before the beginning of time to its end, everything God has thought, said or done has been perfect and needs no change or alteration.

These scriptures are proof that God does not change; that whatever His will has determined, whatever His thoughts and purposes are, when He speaks … they will stand … unopposed forever.

The God of the Old Testament is also the God of the New Testament.

He's Out

One Saturday morning while I was still in bed thinking about trying to wake up enough to drag myself out of my warm bed … I saw a large wooden crate … a box that had the top taken off with the corner tabs opened up so that all four sides were laying flat on the floor; each side pointing to one of the four directions on a compass. The box was empty.

I saw it in my mind or my spirit, one or both; I'm not real sure how that works … it looked and felt to me like it was real. I wasn't in the picture at all. I didn't think too much about it at the time except one thought came to me along with the picture of this flattened wooden box. I didn't hear anything audible, but yet it was as if the Lord was speaking these words to me …

"There, I've kicked apart … for the last time … that box you keep trying to put me in. Don't put me in it again."

In the past year or so I have told Peggy several times … "Every time I get God in the box where I want Him, He always makes a pile of kindling out of it. He kicks it all to pieces." Three or four times in the past when I had God neatly arranged in my doctrinal box … He would break out of these boxes and leave behind a pile of broken, splintered up wood just laying on the ground. But He didn't do that this last time.

This time He carefully took my box apart and left it laying on the ground because it wasn't big enough for Him; it was only big enough to hold my personal doctrine. By doing so, I don't think God was trying to destroy my doctrine, my box I kept Him in … but rather to show me that He is making more room for a better understanding of His true and living Word which contains … God's Doctrine, not mine.

As I look back over the last few months I remember talking to many people that unknowingly keep God in "a box" for the purpose of legitimatizing their own personal doctrine of faith … "see here's all we want God to do" … sort of thing. When we do that we have it all backwards. We can't make God "fit" our personal doctrine … we should make our personal faith fit God's doctrine.

I am sure at this present time God is showing me that … "He's out" … and He wants to stay that way; out of the small tiny box that I have kept Him in. If the universe can't contain Him; then we are robbing ourselves of the size of His greatness and the ability to do big things for us if we keep Him in a box.

He also wants me to allow Him the freedom to work "His works" in and through me. You see, up to now I would only let Him perform the things that kept me safe inside my box … my comfort zone.

Isn't God good. Isn't He patient and understanding as He waits for us to grow up in Him. How dare anyone, including me, to try and contain God in a box of any size?

I love the writings of Solomon who came to this conclusion about the workings and conduct of God as he looked at life; (the following is my translation) …

"God can and will do whatever He wants, whenever He wants, to whomever He wants and there is nothing anyone can do about it. And even so, all is just as it should be because everything He does is always … just and right."

I think I have come to the conclusion that God doesn't follow any rules.

"Don't put me in it again."

I'm going to remember His words to me this time.